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HOW TO PRACTICE 


SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION 


BY THE SAME AUTOR 

“SELF MASTERY THROUGH 
CONSCIOUS AUTOSUGGESTION’* 



HOW TO PRACTICE 
SUGGESTION 

AND 

AUTOSUGGESTION 


BY 

EMILE COUE v 

» »i 


Preface by 


CHARLES BAUDOUIN 



> 


) 


NEW YORK 

AMERICAN LIBRARY SERVICE 

1923 



.C*A 3 


Copyight, 1923 

AMERICAN LIBRARY SERVICE 





All rights reserved 




PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


FEB 19 *23 


©Cl 4600414 

rv\A | 



“Day by day , in every way 
1 am getting better and better 

Emile Coue 




(( Our actions spring not from our Will , 
but from our Imagination 

Emele Cou6 





TO 

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 
WHO HAVE BEEN SO QUICK TO 
SEE THE BENEFITS OF MY THEORIES 

AND 


FOR THEIR GENEROUS 
WELCOME IN ALL 
THE CITIES VISITED BY ME, 



PREFACE 


Thick-set; somewhat short. Quiet, compact 
strength. A remarkably high forehead; hair 
brushed back, a little thinned out and perfectly 
white for a number of years already, as also the 
short pointed beard. And set off by this white 
when the man is laughing, almost sly when he 
frame, a sturdy and youthful face, ruddy-cheeked, 
smiles. The eyes with their straight look reflect 
full of the love of life—a face that is almost jovial 
firm kindliness—small, searching eyes which gaze 
fixedly, penetratingly, and suddenly become 
smaller still in a mischievous pucker, or almost 
close up under concentration when the forehead 
tightens, and seems loftier still. His speech is 
simple, lively, encouraging; he indulges in familiar 
parable and anecdote. His whole appearance is 
as far removed as possible from affectation; you 
feel that he is ready at any moment to remove his 
coat and give a helping hand. Such is the im¬ 
pression made on those who have seen Mr. Emile 
Coue, and Heaven knows they are legion, for no 

9 




io Preface 

man under the sun is more approachable . . . 
and approached. 

He is the type of what is known in England 
and especially in America as the self-made man. 
He never denies his lowly origin, and you feel 
that he loves the masses with a sympathy that 
may be called organic. Born at Troyes in 1857, 
on the 26th of February—he has the same birth 
date as Victor Hugo—he grew up in no more 
than modest surroundings, his father being a 
railroad employee. But the young man was 
gifted and he was able to pursue his studies, at 
Nogent-sur-Seine, until he took his B.A. degree. 
Then, having a leaning for science, he began to 
prepare unaided for his degree of Bachelor of 
Science—in itself a fine proof of perseverance. 
His first failure did not discourage him; he tried 
again, and won out. We next find him at Mont- 
medy, where his father had been sent by the 
railroad. It is easy to imagine the boy’s child¬ 
hood, tossed about from small town to small 
town of the same country, in the environment 
that is characteristic of railroad employees in 
Eastern France, among modest and kindly people, 
obliging, humble, without ambition, laborious, 
conscientious, of sterling honesty—in a word, 


Preface 


II 


good likable folk. And now that the master has 
earned a reputation that borders on fame, it is a 
fine thing to find unaltered in him those same 
traits, the solid and sober virtues of the lower 
middle class. “Mr. Coue is first and foremost 
the type of the worthy fellow” were Mr. Fulli- 
quet’s words the other night when he was wel¬ 
coming him at the “Vers l’Unite” Club. And 
when later he described his work as “admirable,” 
Mr. Coue could not understand, he could not for 
the life of him understand—and no sincerer 
modesty can be found than was his at that 
moment. 

While still a growing boy, Mr. Coue had de¬ 
cided to take up chemistry, but life’s necessities 
prevented this. He had to earn his living, his 
father reminded him, and we sense the struggle 
between a scientific vocation and material needs, 
a struggle that ended by a somewhat unexpected 
compromise: the father persuaded his son to study 
pharmacy, which in its way is utilitarian chem¬ 
istry. But that side of chemistry could not fully 
satisfy the seeker. Here we come upon an in¬ 
stance of “transference” or “compensation” such 
as to delight the soul of a psycho-analyst. We can 
picture the young man in the laboratory of his 


12 


Preface 


store at Troyes, a would-be chemist but a drug¬ 
gist in reality, knowing that he lacks everything 
to become a real chemist—special studies, experi¬ 
mental material and so on—instinctively turning 
to another chemistry that does not require costly 
equipment, the laboratory for which we all carry 
within us : the chemistry of thought and of human 
action. In Mr. Coue there is a “repressed” chem¬ 
ist, who has “expressed” as a psychologist. It 
is well to remember this in order to understand 
one of the characteristic aspects of his psychology : 
it is atomic, in the old way; it represents mental 
realities as material, solid things, in juxtaposition 
or opposition or superposition in the same manner 
as substance or atoms. When he speaks of an 
“idea” or of “imagination” or of “will-power,” 
he speaks of them as if they were elements or 
combinations or reactions. He remains alien to 
an entire psychological current of his time, to 
that notion of continuity introduced by James 
and Bergson. His psychology, from a theoretical 
point of view, remains voluntarily simple, and 
intellectual snobs are apt to turn their noses up 
at it. 

But he certainly returns the compliment: he 
has a severe contempt—a surgeon’s contempt— 


Preface 


13 


for theory. The splitting of intellectual hairs 
does not suit him—rather would he pull it out 
by handfuls! His strong plebeian nature is the 
nature of a man of action who does not care 
for pure intellectualism. That chemistry at¬ 
tracted him is due to the fact that it is a science 
that calls for actual handling. And here I am 
led to think of Ingres’ violin: in his leisure Mr. 
Coue is something of a sculptor and he has 
modeled several heads; in him there is the need 
of handling matter. And it may be said that 
he handles psychic matter in just the same way 
as modeling clay: in thought he sees above all 
a force capable of modeling the human body. So 
his “Ingres’ violin” did not to any extent turn 
him aside from his line, which is rigorously 
simple: his psychology is ideoplastic, and that is 
its great originality. 

Now Bergson himself has said: “If mind is 
continuity and fluidity, it must nevertheless, every 
time it wishes to act upon matter model itself on 
matter, adopt its solidity, its crude discontinuity, 
and think of itself as if it were space and matter.” 
It was natural therefore that an essentially prac¬ 
tical psychology should be this brief psychology 
I have spoken of. Thus, Mr. Coue’s great pred- 


H 


Preface 


ecessor, Bernheim, gave of “idea” and of “sug¬ 
gestion” somewhat crude and controvertible defi¬ 
nitions (“Suggestion is an idea that changes into 
action”). With Mr. Coue, this aspect is even 
more marked. But while we point out here his 
limitations, we must not deplore them too much 
They are the very limitations that thought im¬ 
poses upon itself in order to become more power¬ 
ful action. 

* 

* * 

It was in 1885, when he was twenty-eight, 
that the small druggist of Troyes met Liebeault 
for the first time. And that meeting decided his 
entire life. 

Between the two men there were remarkable 
affinities. Liebeault was merely a country doctor, 
unpretentious and without ambition, who hap¬ 
pened to be also a genius. He was the first to 
show clearly the phenomenon of suggestion, and 
he almost performed miracles. He finally estab¬ 
lished himself at Nancy, where he was to find 
in Bernheim the disciple and theoretician through 
whom his ideas were to be made known to the 
world. Now, Emile Coue’s history was to be 
somewhat similar. He has conducted himself 



Preface 


15 


with the same modesty; he has never sought 
out men but allowed men to seek him out, at 
first a few neighbors, until now, every week, 
several Englishmen cross the Channel for the 
sole purpose of visiting him at Nancy. With 
that native simplicity of honest and great men, 
he is always surprised at this, surprised to see that 
his idea is conquering Europe. 

After assisting at some of Liebeault’s experi¬ 
ments, he began to study and practice hypnotic 
suggestion. Instantly he perceived its possibilities, 
but as practiced by Liebeault he found in it a 
vagueness that hindered his work: “it lacked 
method,” he would say. His positive and con¬ 
crete temperament, his need of “touching” and 
“handling” were ill at ease confronted by a reality 
that was still elusive and capricious. While he 
was waiting for an experimental and practical 
method, he gave free vent to his gift for observa¬ 
tion, which is of the highest order (it will be 
realized how great when it is remembered that 
one fine dav this man discovered in himself a 

j 

talent for modeling heads without any previous 
plastic training). He is as observant as he is 
practical. He found the most novel, the most 
pregnant part of his doctrine in simple every-day 



i6 


Preface 


observation. And this should be a lesson to us; 
this should remind us that the gift, artistic in a 
certain sense of every-day observation, is for 
science a rich field that should not be underesti¬ 
mated ; other processes must be added, but cannot 
take its place. Too often, far oftener than is 
supposed, official scientific training remains scho¬ 
lastic : it teaches how to reason and makes one 
forget how to observe. We may mention, too, 
what the instigators of the “new schools,” from 
Rousseau down, have perceived, to wit, the bond 
between manual activity and observation. A 
training that develops the intellectual side of man 
to the exclusion of the practical side, runs the 
risk of jeopardizing the gift of observation, which 
is the very basis of intellect. 

So once again perhaps we have to thank fate 
for its hard knocks: it is those very knocks that 
make it educational. We have possibly cause to 
rejoice, not to deplore, that Mr. Emile Coue’s 
studies were cut short at an age when they 
should normally have continued—to rejoice that 
in those years of full vigor of the mind, he learned 
more through playing truant than by covering 
the customary university programme. At every 
step his science plunges into the very heart of 


Preface 


1 7 


life, and it is a very real pleasure to follow him 
into that wholesome, invigorating nature bath— 
a pleasure, truth to tell, which people boasting 
of too barren an intellectualism no longer appre¬ 
ciate. 

And so Mr. Coue went on observing with that 
penetrating, mischievous and kindly eye of his. 
Making the best of things, he found in his work 
an unlimited opportunity for observation. The 
capricious action of remedies, the effect of a 
well-placed word with the bottle of medicine, the 
cure of some obstinate disease by means of an 
innocuous compound, all these things, ordinary 
as they are, held meaning for this great observer; 
they registered on his mind during all his youth 
and within that subconscious whose praise he was 
to sing later, they were preparing the elaboration 
of his future thesis: autosuggestion. 

* 

* * 

Meanwhile, the ideas of the Nancy school had 
spread. In America they were being exploited 
and popularized with all the claptrap and noise 
that accompanies bluff. In that mass of very 
uninteresting literature, Mr. Coue thought there 




i8 


Preface 


was perhaps something to be found, and his 
merit lies in having been able to extract the 
strong, vital principle from all that trash. In one 
of those American pamphlets which he describes 
as “very indigestible,” he at least found indica¬ 
tions of experiments which he had the patience 
to try out, and in which he believed he saw the 
necessary basis for the “method” he had been 
seeking ever since his meeting with Liebeault. 
This brings us to 1901. The “method” he 
started to apply at that time leads the subject to 
hypnosis by means of a series of graduated ex¬ 
periments in suggestion in the waking state. Mr. 
Coue was then using hypnotism. 

But little by little the ideas which were to be 
his own personal contribution crystallized. They 
are the result of the encounter between his me¬ 
thodical experiments and those simple, every-day 
observations he had been storing up for years. 
What explained the capricious and unexpected 
action of remedies was of course the patient’s 
“imagination.” Possibly it might be that same 
imagination, methodically directed in the gradu¬ 
ated experiments, that develops the strangest sug¬ 
gestions and hypnosis itself. And might not 
the passiveness, the incapacity to resist shown by 






Preface 


19 


the patient subjected to suggestion or hypnosis 
simply be the sign that when will and imagina¬ 
tion are in conflict, imagination has the upper 
hand? Now this is not merely seen in cases of 
systematic suggestion and hypnosis. In every¬ 
day life we constantly note the same conflict and 
the same failure; and this happens every time we 
think “I cannot refrain from” or “I cannot help 
it.” 

Here we have the germ of the two fundamen¬ 
tal ideas of Coueism. The first is that in the 
last analysis all suggestion is auto-suggestion, and 
autosuggestion is nothing else but the well-known 
action of “imagination” or of the “mental,” but 
acting in accordance with certain laws and im¬ 
measurably more powerful than was formerly 
believed. 

The other idea is corollary to the first: Since, 
in suggestion, it is not the one who suggests 
who is acting but solely the imagination of the 
subject, it follows that the violent and very real 
conflict that all practitioners have noted in sug¬ 
gestion and hypnosis is not the conflict of two 
wills but the conflict within the subject himself 
of imagination and will. Will is overcome by 
imagination. 


20 


Preface 


This second idea, it would seem, is the essential 
idea of Mr. Coue and his most fruitful one. He 
has studied it thoroughly, with singular acuteness, 
and has formulated this law, which I have called 
the law of converted effort, according to which 
will is not only powerless against suggestion but 
only serves to strengthen the suggestion it seeks 
to destroy. Such is the case of the embryo 
bicycle rider who sees a stone, is afraid of falling 
on it, makes a desperate effort to avoid it, and 
only succeeds in landing on it with masterly preci¬ 
sion. The same may be said of stage fright, or 
giggling, which increases with every effort to 
check it. 

Undoubtedly this law could be expressed more 
broadly still by saying that in the conflict between 
the sub-conscious and conscious will, it is always 
the former that carries the day: Will can only 
triumph over the sub-conscious by borrowing its 
own weapons; and that is exactly what takes 
place in methodical auto-suggestion. 

Having recognized in the imagination of the 
subject the great lever, Mr. Coue was led to give 
up hypnotism, and then to teach the subject how 
to use suggestion on himself. While doing this 
he proved that he was on the right track, for the 


Preface 


21 


results of suggestion so understood exceeded the 
usual limits. Thus he ascertained the action of 
suggestion in organic cases, which was also noted 
in independent research by Dr. Bonjour of Lau¬ 
sanne (falling off of moles through suggestion). 

In 1910, the system formed a compact whole, 
and from that date started what is now known 
as the “new” Nancy school. At collective sittings 
which constantly increased in size (even the war 
only showed a slight slowing down) Mr. Coue 
obtained surprising results, and today one refers 
to the “miracles of Nancy.” More remarkable 
still, this man, whose life has been a hard and 
laborious one, gratuitously distributes health and 
joy to the thousands of human beings who flock 
to him as to a savior. 

More and more, in this great work of charity, 
Mr. Coue has adapted himself to the people, the 
simple-minded ones of the earth whom he loves 
and feels akin to. It is both his glory and his 
limitation. He lets others adapt the expression 
of his ideas to the needs of the more delicate- 
minded. If, year by year, he has simplified that 
expression, if he has given it that childish and 
commonplace appearance that disappointed so 
many in the course of his recent lectures, it should 





22 Preface 

be understood to what praiseworthy tendency in 
him this fault is due. 

Mr. Coue has also been reproached with con¬ 
stantly repeating the same thing. Well, he does. 
I doubt whether he may be expected to change 
now; I am not even sure that it would be desir¬ 
able. He has an idea, two if you like; I do not 
believe he has three, but then he would not know 
what to do with a third. The two ideas he has, 
he really possesses; he holds on to them and he 
attaches great importance to them. He knows 
how weighty they are. He also knows—none 
better—the value of that concentration, that 
singleness of idea, which alone allows an idea to 
become a suggestion, a force. He also knows 
the value of that monotonous and obstinate repe¬ 
tition that he recommends for practice in. sugges¬ 
tion. One is reminded of old Cato: by dint of 
repeating each day in the tribune: “Carthage 
must be destroyed,” he destroyed Carthage 
That obstinacy, too, is a limitation, but it is also 
a force. 

It is quite true that Mr. Coue’s manner cannot 
appeal to everybody. In Geneva, especially, 
where everybody is so “refined,” this French easy, 
good-nature, carried to an extreme rather shocked 


Preface 


23 


them, it would seem. The very tumult of success, 
the sort of popular wave that follows Mr. Coue 
wherever he goes, frightened away the mannerly 
and prudent. They saw in it display, quackery 
almost. What a misconception, and how dis¬ 
heartening to those who are aware of the modesty 
and self-denial of this great and good man! One 
might as well claim that the magnet makes a 
noise in order to attract steel, and I am sure that 
if Jesus himself were to return among us, trailing 
through the humbler streets of the town with 
his retinue of poor, the “well-bred” would cover 
their faces and exclaim “Quackery!” But Mr. 
Coue quietly goes on his way, knowing that he 
cannot please the world and his wife. 

One might wish of course for more suppleness, 
a greater faculty of adapting himself to his 
various audiences. But it is best to take him 
as he is: a rough diamond, a kind of natural 
force. 

If he confines himself, by temperament and 
choice, to action on the masses, he knows that he 
can do so without harm. His disciples are there, 
particularly his disciples the doctors, and their 
action can reach where his does not. Let us men¬ 
tion Dr. Vachet and Dr. Prost of Paris, and 







24 


Preface 


Monier-Williams, who after coming to study 
autosuggestion at Nancy, opened a clinic in 
London for the application of the method. It is 
in England that physicians and intellectuals have 
best understood the powerful originality of 
“Coueism” (they coined the word). In France, 
and elsewhere too, most people refuse to under¬ 
stand. First the whole thing was called absurd; 
now that the idea has made itself felt and can no 
longer be ignored, we are told: “This is all very 
well, but we have known about it a long time; 
under another name it is our old friend sugges¬ 
tion/’ These are the first two stages through 
which according to Mr. James every truly novel 
idea passes: first, it is extravagant, then it is true 
but commonplace. Shall we soon be ripe for the 
third stage, that of understanding? Generally, 
official science’s chief reproach is that Mr. Coue is 
not a physician, and official science tries to ignore 
the nucleus of doctors who are daily increasing 
the numbers of the Nancy school. But it should 
be remembered that the ideas of that school are 
called upon to spread elsewhere besides medicine. 
To the fields of education, ethics, psychology and 
sociology, they offer new points of view. No one 
who is interested in the human mind can remain 


Preface 


25 


indifferent where they are concerned. A few 
churchmen have understood this remarkably well. 
Not to mention the sermon preached at St. Paul’s 
Cathedral in London on June 10, 1921, by Canon 
E. W. Barnes, we have numerous instances 
among the Geneva clergy of a fine open-minded¬ 
ness which scientific men would do well to emu¬ 
late. 

This attitude is not surprising. Although Mr. 
Coue’s doctrine remains absolutely neutral in 
metaphysical matters, it does meet on common 
ground with religion in its affirmation of the 
power of mind over the body. As for the life of 
the master, there is none that more closely con¬ 
forms to the true Christian idea. To give of 
one’s self as he does is more than rare; it is ex¬ 
ceptional, and if there were at Nancy no other 
“miracle” than that one, it would be enough and 
more than enough to make us bow our heads in 
respect. That miracle is the mainspring of all 
the rest. 

CHARLES BAUDOUIN. 

Geneva, March, 1922. 


' 







CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface. 9 

FIRST PART 

Interview by Emile Coue of Each Patient Attending 
His Clinic.29 

SECOND PART 

Examples and Experiments Illustrating the Powers of 
Suggestion and Autosuggestion.57 

THIRD PART 

Suggestions: (a) General.71 

(b) Special for Each Ailment 

FOURTH PART 

Special Suggestions for Each Ailment.7 9 

FIFTH PART 

AxDvice to Patients. u . . 99 

SIXTH PART 

Lecture Delivered by Emile Coue in Twenty Cities of 
America. io 5 













1 


FIRST PART 

INTERVIEW BETWEEN EMILE COUE 
AND EACH PERSON ATTENDING THE 
CLINIC AND GENERAL CONVERSA¬ 
TION, PERMITTING M. COUE TO 
ASCERTAIN THE STATE OF MIND 
OF HIS INVALIDS 


* 











All the people who are sick (they are numerous, 
and all maladies or nearly all are represented) 
are seated in a circle round M. Coue. With art¬ 
less good-nature he interests himself in each one; 
he asks those who have tried his method to “help 
to cure themselves” as he calls it, he asks new¬ 
comers their state of health, gives them advice 
and encourages them. To those who come for 
the first time, he asks the reason of their visit, and 
from what complaint they are suffering. 

M. Coue (to an honest woman who has come 
to him with pains in the stomach and stiffness of 
the limbs) : “You do not walk perfectly at 
present, you know! Walk now in front of me, 
quicker, still quicker!” 

(The woman runs after M. Coue round the 
room, and shows with pleasure that she walks— 
and runs much more easily than before.) 

M. Coue (to an old woman who is deaf and 
has a swelling of the liver) : “What is your 
trouble, Madam? You are deaf? No, no, you 
are not deaf because you have just replied to what 
I have asked you!” 

“Ah! yes, but you speak loudly, that is why 
I can hear you.” 


31 


32 


How to Practice 


“Yes, well there is no sort of deafness worse 
than that of a person who does not wish to hear!” 

“Oh! but it is not that I do not wish to hear! 
I am deaf!” 

“But you see very well that you are not deaf 
because you understand me! (laughter). Where 
do you suffer besides?” 

“I am swollen on the side of my liver.” 

“I did not ask you where you were swollen! 
I ask you where you suffer pain.” (M. Coue 
uses his method: It is going, it is going, while 
rubbing the painful part lightly; the woman re¬ 
peats with him very rapidly the words: It is 
going; it is going, and feels very much better.) 

A Polish man, suffering from the liver, is ac¬ 
companied by his wife. M. Coue speaks to them 
in German. 

“And you, Mile., have you need of help?” 

“You, Sir, you have a tumor on the tongue 
which necessitated a surgical operation. I cannot 
affirm that that will be cured. It is quite possible 
that you may be, but I do not affirm it. To 
certain people I say plainly: You will be cured, 
because I am sure of it. To others I say: It is 
possible that you may be cured. I say perhaps. 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 


33 


That does not mean that I am sure, nor does it 
mean the reverse.” 

“And you, Sir?” 

“Oh! I am cured! (to those present). I was a 
neurasthenic for three years. I have only been 
to M. Coue six times, and now I am cured!” 

“I congratulate you, my friend, it is a very 
good thing to be cured!” 

“And you, Sir?” “Pain in the right side?” 

“Yes, but it should go away, M. Coue!” 

“And yet you say you do not use suggestion, 
you use it very well on the contrary!” 

“You, sir, are asthmatical? A little time ago 
there was a gentleman here who had been asth¬ 
matical for a long time; he was able at last to go 
up and down stairs without becoming breathless 
at all. An interesting case of asthma is that of M. 
Mollino, of London, who had been asthmatical for 
25 years, and who passed his nights sitting up in 
bed trying to find some means to breathe easily, 
which he was not able to do. He stayed here 
not quite three weeks, and left completely cured. 
On leaving here, he went to Chamonix. The day 
after he made an ascent of six thousand feet, and 
the following day one of seven thousand. He 
was sad, but he became happy and held himself 


34 


How to Practice 


erect like a young man. I was very pleased to see 
him thus. His daughter, Mme. M., also profited 
by her stay here.” 

“And you, Madam?” 

“The bladder is much better. There is no 
longer any deposit in the urine. I am much better. 
But as I am a woman with a family, I wished to 
do some washing. I did too much, however, 
which gave me shooting pains in the legs, so that 
I could not sleep.” 

“That is easy to get rid of. From the moment 
that you felt your bladder better, you will find 
these pains are easy to cure.” 

“And you. Madam, the heart.” 

“Yes, Sir, I was treated in the hospital, but I 
left it as I entered it, without being any better.” 

“They told you that your heart was bad. You 
had palpitations? When you went upstairs you 
were breathless? Well, a little time ago there 
was a woman here, and she also suffered from 
palpitations. She was able to go up and down 
stairs without any difficulty, and you will do me 
the pleasure of doing the same thing presently.” 

“You, Madam, are very depressed? You do 
not appear at all depressed, you are laughing!” 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 35 

“One must keep cheerful, try to console ones- 
self!” 

“To console yourself! No, you must send that 
away, that feeling! Do not tremble, neither your 
hand nor your foot need tremble, your leg too! 
But it no longer trembles !” 

“I feel it.” 

“But I tell you that it does not tremble!” 

“That which troubles me most, is the numbness 
that I feel.” 

“You must get rid of all that: above all no 
efforts.” 

“In the evening I am sure to be better, but in 
the morning on awakening, I have, I am afraid, 
brain trouble.” 

“Ah! always this fear! Good gracious!!! But 
you can make people die in this way. One day 
five or six good fellows said among themselves: 
“We will play a joke upon So and So. When he 
comes in, we will say to him: ‘Why, whatever is 
the matter with you?' The young man in ques¬ 
tion met one of the fellows later, and the latter 
said to him: ‘Why, whatever is the matter with 
you today? Are you ill? You look so strange!’ 
He replies: ‘No, I am not ill, no . . . there is 
nothing wrong with me.’ Later he met another 


3 ^ 


How to Practice 


of his friends who said to him: ‘But you are as 
yellow as a guinea! Are you ill? You look so 
anyhow!’ The poor fellow hesitated and said: 
‘No ... I ... I have nothing the matter with 
me; but it is odd, some one else told me almost 
the same thing/ When the third man speaks to 
him, he believes himself ill, and when the fourth 
and fifth, he really is ill and goes to bed. ... !” 

“And you, Sir, neurasthenia? Ask this gentle¬ 
man the formula for healing yourself. He will 
tell you all about it presently. He was completely 
cured himself. 

“I do not sleep!” 

“You will sleep like a doormouse, and then 
everything will assume a rosy tint. There is a 
certain expression in your face which shows that 
it will soon leave you, and if you can smile there 
is no longer any neurasthenia!” 

“I can no longer write; I cannot write or speak 
quickly; I am sad and can no longer think. I 
am losing my faculties!” 

“Ah, well, you can no longer think! The best 
proof that you can still think is that you say (and 
in consequence you think it) ‘I can no longer 
think/ I am going to give you a prescription 
which will make you laugh, but which is excellent. 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 37 

Every time that you have gloomy thoughts, you 
will place yourself in front of a looking glass, 
and laugh at yourself. In a few minutes you will 
find that you are laughing quite naturally, as you 
are doing now. And when you can laugh as you 
are at present, neurasthenia goes away. I tell 
you NEURASTHENIA GOES AWAY.” 

“And you, Madam?” 

“My pains are better. Every time that I have 
them, I use the method you have shown me, but 
they come back!” 

“Ah! Well, you must not forget this, that I 
never cure anyone. For the moment you are not 
getting well very fast. Very good. Then say 
to yourself: ‘After all it is not so bad today, 
and tomorrow it will be still better. . . .’ 

“And you, Madam, the stomach? You cannot 
digest your food? Well, well, you will digest 
your food soon.” 

“I wish to conquer my fear.” 

“Ah! . You are frightened of being afraid, and 
yet it is the fear of being frightened that makes 
you afraid!” 

“And you, Madam. You say that during the 
day you feel well ?” 


38 


How to Practice 


“Yes, it is in the night I feel bad; I feel stifled 
and expectorate a lot.” 

“You are careful to make your suggestions ?” 

“I never miss.” 

“Then you will be cured.” 

“And you, Madam. You continue to improve. 
No one will recognize you when you return to 
London! Madame came here in a deplorable 
state of mind. She had to have some one with 
her lest she should throw herself overboard while 
on the boat. She imagined a whole host of things. 
But she started imagining just the contrary, and 
you see the result. And Madame, has only been 
here a fortnight.” 

“And you, Mile., you continue to get better?” 

“Oh, yes, the other day my friend left me, and 
I did not shed a single tear, in fact I wanted to 
laugh!” 

“Oh, but you are exaggerating, you must be 
hardhearted. It is good, however. You h*ve 
made progress.” 

“(To an English woman who has a trembling) 
And you, well and good, are better. It seems that 
yesterday you were able to get up from your chair 
and walk fairly well ... not this morning? But 
if you are able to do it one day, you can do it 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 39 

every day. You must always say to yourself: 
‘I can.’ You cannot walk well today? Well, 
presently you are going to run! It is not hope 
that will cure you. It is the certainty.” 

(A voice in the audience.) “I saw Mile, get 
out of the tram almost without help. One held 
out a hand to her, because one is used to helping 
her, and so Mile, took it but she could have done 
without it.” 

“Ah! but you have deceived me, Mile., that is 
naughty of you!” 

To a young girl who had not been able to see 
at all with the left eye, and whom M. Coue has 
cured.) “Come, Mile., let us measure your sight!” 
(M. Coue moves further and further from her, 
until she can no longer see his features plainly.) 
“But you have made great progress! Soon you 
will be able to see a fly upon a cathedral!” (A 
voice.) “I told Mile, she would soon be able 
to see the Cannebiere from here!” (Laughter.) 

“Well, Mile., if you had continued to use your 
lorgnon, you would have become quite blind in 
time. You owe me a candle at least. (To the 
assembly.) “Since Mile, was two years old 
(she is now twenty-two) she could no longer 
see with the left eye as a result of meningitis. 


40 


How to Practice 


For a whole year this eye was bandaged. As she 
was a whole year thus and not able to see any¬ 
thing, the idea fixed itself in her mind: ‘I cannot 
see!’ When the bandage was removed she could 
not see at all with that eye. I just said that she 
might have become completely blind, because she 
was overstraining the right eye, and that if she 
were not careful, she would end by not seeing at 
all. But now Mile, who could not play the piano 
for more than five minutes, can play for two 
hours, and she sews and reads with the left eye.” 

“And you, Mme., always the same thing? But 
you walk very well! Therefore it is not the 
same thing. Above all, do not get the idea into 
your head that you are not improving, you 
MUST improve. It is perfectly normal for you 
to do so!” 

“And you, young man, your cold? You have 
not lost it? It is that you are too fond of it, you 
know ! You no longer have any boils or pimples. 
They become fewer and fewer? So much the 
better.” 

(An English lady.) “M. Coue, will you help 
me to cure my left eye, and my throat which is 
contracted?” 

“You say, Madam, that your throat is con- 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 41 

tracted. That will relax. It is a nervous affec¬ 
tion. You say that you had an incision the result 
of an operation? But do you always have the 
same sensations? Sometimes it is stronger and 
at other times less ? There is then something else 
beside the incision. If it were caused exclusively 
by the incision, you would always have the same 
feeling. It is partly a psychological affection with 
you. The other day there was a little man here 
who could hardly speak. At the end of the seance 
he could speak nearly normally. It must have 
been continued for he did not return . . . and 
generally when people do not come to see me 
again, it is because they are cured!” 

(During the seance the following day.) 

(M. Coue, to a person suffering with her 
throat.) “And you, Madam, who had contrac¬ 
tion of the throat, were you able to make a sound 
yesterday ?” “I sang, but it was horrible, really 
frightful.” 

“You should not have begun by singing; 
you should have started by trying one or two 
notes on the piano and singing with it. Once a 
person is persuaded that they can sing one note, 
although they did not think they were capable of 
doing so, they can sing other notes.” 


42 


How to Practice 


“And you, Madam! You tell me that you had 
a pretty voice up to the age of 14 years, and 
that they burnt your vocal cords following an 
operation? From this account, I do not say that 
you will recover a pretty voice, because your 
voice is hoarse. You must not do too much 
talking, and your voice may lose its hoarseness.” 

(A voice.) “I know a young girl who gave 
herself the suggestion that she should have a 
pretty voice. Is it possible ?” 

“Yes, it is possible.” 

(To a man who enters.) “You have come to 
look on? No, for help? Good! I will teach 
you how to use an instrument which you possess 
when you are no longer here! You are neuras¬ 
thenic? You may not be cured all at once. When 
Christ carried His cross He fell more than once. 
And so we mortals are also allowed to fall some¬ 
times. But you will be quite cured in time. 

“For twenty years I have not slept!” 

“Ah, well, when you really understand my 
treatment, you will sleep like a doormouse, you 
will see!” 

“I was under Bernheim. He tried to make me 
sleep, but he was not able to do so.” 

“It is not practical to make people sleep, be- 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 


43 


cause if you are not successful, they say that as 
they cannot be cured! Therefore I send no one 
to sleep.” 

“With me it depends upon the weather, the 
wind. This weather is bad for me. I had a very 
bad day. I got up very tired and depressed. I 
knew at once that the weather was going to 
change!” 

“Well, I cannot tell the weather beforehand 
(maliciously) that is unless I look at the sky! 
(Laughter.) But the time will come when you 
will no longer be dependent upon the wind and 
the weather!” 

(A young girl in the assembly.) “I was afraid 
to be in the streets in Paris. I was afraid to go 
out, of the noise, and my heart used to beat. 
From the first time on leaving here, I was no 
longer frightened. Then I was given the manage¬ 
ment of a studio for drawing. I had no ideas 
and was without imagination. I was terrified to 
enter the studio! Now I have imagination and 
ideas. I go to my work with pleasure!” 

“I have seen at M. Vachet’s clinic at Paris, a 
man who could not go out unless he was accom¬ 
panied like a child, by a person who held either 
his hand or his coat. When he left the doctor’s, 


44 


How to Practice 


he went on foot and alone along the road from 
Fontaine St. Michael to the Grand Boulevards.” 

(To an Englishwoman.) “And you, Mile., 
you have just returned from your little journey? 

“Yes, M. Coue. Yesterday in the train there 
was a young girl who complained to me of hav¬ 
ing bad headaches; I told her they could be cured, 
and explained to her what you have told me. She 
listened very carefully, and after a treatment her 
headache vanished. When she left she had no 
pain at all.” 

“I am very pleased to hear that!” 

(A voice.) “But there are some people who 
are cured at once, while others take a much longer 
time!” 

“Because it is too easy to understand! There 
are those who cannot imagine so simple a thing 
will produce such an effect!” 

(The Englishwoman continues.) “After that, 
we went to a cottage, and the woman there suf¬ 
fered from varicose veins; we did the same thing 
to her and she found relief. She was paralyzed 
on one side, and had an irritible rash on the left 
side of her face. She did not tell us about her 
left eye which was very weak. We used the same 
method, and when we had finished, not only did 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 45 

she feel much better, but upon opening her eyes 
she said : ‘But I can see quite well with that eye V 
We did not know when we started to treat her 
that her eye was bad, but her unconscious Self 
had done what was necessary to improve her 
sight!” 

(To a child suffering from nervous attacks.) 
“And you, my little friend, have you made your 
suggestion well ? You tell me, Mme., that he only 
has attacks every two or three months? You 
consider them getting better? Good! But it is 
necessary that either you or your husband con¬ 
tinue to make suggestions to him at night. I am 
quite sure that he will be completely cured in 
time.” 

“And you, Mme., have you made your obses¬ 
sions of yesterday pass? Very good! Autosug¬ 
gestion is just a trick! As soon as you begin to 
suffer either physically or mentally do not let it 
get worse. You must never let anything get the 
better of you. That is what Horace meant when 
he said: ‘Let nothing overcome you’!” 

“And you, Madam?” 

“I was much better, but the doctor told me it 
was my nerves. He said to me: ‘Go and see M. 
Coue; it is only he who can cure you!” 


4 6 


How to Practice 


“He said I could cure you? It is not I who 
cure you. I show you the method to use. I can 
do nothing of myself; although you may believe it 
of me. It is for you to use the method which I 
give you. If you are not cured, you must not say 
that it is I who failed. It is you who have failed 
if you are not able to cure yourself with the 
method I have shown you.” 

“And you, Madam, for this little one?” 

“His leg is twisted since he had convulsions 
when he was a year old.” 

“Walk a little way; he limps a little.” (The 

I 

child walks but limps.) 

“Yes, he has coxalgia, one leg is a little shorter 
than the other. Does it hurt when you walk? 
No? If there is no pain, his lameness is due to 
the fact that one leg is shorter than the other. It 
is thinner than the other, you say? Yes, because 
it does not get the same amount of nourishment. 
Yesterday there was a young man here who had 
one leg atrophied. He found that he had made 
progress, however, because though his leg was 
not yet a normal size, the calf was nearly as big 
as that of his other leg.” 

(A voice.) “One would say that this child's 
leg is crooked.” 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 47 

“His leg will get better, very probably, but it 
needs time. It has to build up new muscles.” 

“And you, Mile., you very often have a head¬ 
ache? Nearly every day? You will see how 
quickly a headache can disappear!” 

(A woman.) “I was the same when I was a 
girl; I had a headache every Sunday. (Smiles.) 
Yes, I used to say to myself all the week: ‘Oh, 
how I am going to suffer again next Sunday! And 
from Sunday to Sunday I expected the pain; at 
9 o’clock I expected the pain and it used to come!” 

“And now?” 

“Now I have no time to think about it. I am 
married and have too much to do!” 

“And you, Sir, you have pains between the 
ribs and inflammation of the ear? You have 
completely lost the hearing on that side? Then 
I cannot affirm that you will be completely cured, 
but it is quite possible; is there still a discharge 
from it? Probably under the influence of auto¬ 
suggestion, your unconscious Self will do what is 
necessary to heal the lesions, and as they heal, the 
hearing may return. As an example, a man who 
had been pensioned off by the railroad company, 
had both ear drums perforated, and was as deaf 
as a post! He was cured and could hear not so 


48 


How to Practice 


well as formerly perhaps, but sufficiently well to 
enable him to hear me when I spoke to him as I 
am doing to you at this moment.” 

‘‘The liver, Mine. ? Hepatic colic? When you 
have hepatic colic that comes because the liver is 
not functioning properly; it is secreting an acid 
bile instead of an alkaline bile. Gallstones? You 
have not got them now, if you had you would be 
as yellow as a guinea! When the bile is acid, it 
leaves a deposit in the bile duct, a thick cholis- 
terine fluid, which accumulates and forms gall¬ 
stones; it follows that if you have a collection of 
these gallstones they do not dissolve, and every 
time they pass into the canal leading to the gall 
bladder, they cause pain and colic; but once they 
are used up they will not form again. As to the 
metritis, that can be cured and should do so 
rapidly; the first case of metritis I saw was of 
24 years standing, they wished to operate upon 
this person but she was cured very quickly.” 

“A varicose ulcer? That is not easily cured by 
ordinary treatment, but you can do so easily by 
autosuggestion.” 

“I always put on my ointment and bandage.” 

“Yes, well put on a little suggestion ointment 
instead. You have had it for some time?” 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 49 

“It was 10 years ago, but it got well; then 8 
months ago I knocked my leg badly and it opened 
again. I have only been to you three times, and 
yet I am cured! The skin is still thin, of course, 
but I am cured!” 

“And you, Mme., you always have gloomy 
thoughts ?” 

“Yes, every time I wake up in the morning I 
feel like going and drowning myself!” 

“Ah! well, you will soon drown yourself in joy 
instead of grief!” 

(A woman.) “I, Sir, have already been to you 
this summer and I was quite cured, but I forgot 
to continue my suggestion, and so am obliged to 
come and see you.” 

“And if I were unkind I should tell you that it 
served you right! It is such a simple thing to 
make this little suggestion night and morning; 
you do not forget your meals; forget sometimes 
to have your dinner, but make your suggestions 
regularly.” 

(A woman suffering from eczema.) “My 
hands are very bad! (she shows them all cracked, 
etc.) I have had it since I was fourteen years 
old.” 

“One thing you must not do is to put your 


50 


How to Practice 


hands in water with soap or soda; you must not 
wash your hands at all in the usual way; you must 
smear them well with a little pad of wadding 
dipped in oil, and then take your own special 
towel to wipe your hands upon; but if you con¬ 
tinue to put your hands in water, you will make 
your suggestion in vain; it would return and you 
would scratch your hands with your nails!” 

“And you, my friend ?” 

“It is nervousness, I stammer.” 

“You are sure that you stammer? Well, I say 
that you do not! Say: “Good day,” you see you 
do not stammer! Say: I am sure to get well! 
You have only got to think that you will not 
stammer and you will no longer do so. I have 
seen half-a-dozen stammerers who do not stam¬ 
mer before me; it is only because I make them 
say: “I will stammer no more! One day a 
young man came to me and said: I have come 
to you because I stammer. I asked him: Is it 
your intention to make fun of me? You do not 
stammer at all! He replied: But I used to. . . . 
Ah! Well, I told him, as you have not stam¬ 
mered to-day you will never stammer any more. 
And for you, Sir, it is the same thing; above 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 51 

all do not fear to stammer and you will be 
all right.” 

“And you, Sir, rheumatism?” 

“It begins in the calf and goes up to the knee; 
when I am in bed it does not hurt so much, but I 
find it very difficult to walk.” 

“And suppose I tell you that you will walk 
easily presently?” 

“I wish I could, and above all be able to run 
with the beagles.” 

“You, Mme., have stage-fright? At Paris I 
saw a young girl who taught the piano, violin 
and singing; she had the same thing, but she 
came to me and was cured at once; she became as 
bald as a billiard ball with the fright she endured 
the day of the examinations! Very often when 
the examinations are going to take place the 
pupils from the Conservatories and elsewhere 
come to me; and it is very seldom that it fails. 
Understand clearly that it is the idea of fear 
which produces it; you have stage-fright because 
you fear to have it; when you go to address a 
meeting you must say to yourself: I am superior 
to all these people, I am going to teach them 
something, I am the teacher, these are the pupils! 


52 


How to Practice 


In these conditions one does not have stage- 
fright.” 

“You, Sir, have a piece of shrapnel in the calf 
of the leg? It worries you when you are resting? 
Has it been removed? No, and it gives you 
cramp; that is easy to get rid of!” 

“As for you, Mile. You are very timid and 
nervous! You should become completely of your¬ 
self! What age are you? Seventeen years? It 
is necessary for you, Madame, to give her sug¬ 
gestions at night; when the child is asleep, ap¬ 
proach her bed very quietly, and when about a 
yard distant speak very low to her so as not t< 
awaken her, and repeat 20 or 25 times those 
things which you wish her to obtain, so that they 
may enter into her unconscious Self; for there 
are two individuals within us, the conscious and 
the unconscious Selves. When we sleep the con¬ 
scious Self sleeps, but the unconscious Self is 
awake and it is to him we speak.” 

“You are better I can see!” (to a man suffer¬ 
ing with his chest). 

“Yes, and I am eating better!” 

“And your expression has changed; you have 
the look of a human being who has taken on a 
new lease of life!” 


t 


53 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 

(A woman.) “I turn giddy constantly; when 
I see a motor car I want to get out of its way, 
but I cannot! This is caused by the fact that one 
day in trying to avoid a tram, I was nearly run 
over by a motor bus.” 

“But Mme. I too, should become stuck, if on 
seeing a motor coming I were to say to myself: 
I am stuck, I cannot move! Listen; you are on 
a road, suddenly you hear a chuff, chuff, chuff! 
You turn round and perceive a car coming along 
at a hundred miles an hour! If you are unfor¬ 
tunate enough to say to yourself: I want to save 
myself, but I cannot! There you are! And if 
the chauffeur says: Good gracious! I am going 
to run over her . . . it happens! If on the con¬ 
trary, he does not lose his head, he gives the little 
turn that is necessary and misses you! You must 
not say: I want to save myself! But: I can save 
myself! There is a great difference!” 

(Another woman.) “I always have an inflam¬ 
mation of the brain caused by a cold, and I can¬ 
not get rid of it.” 

“Ah, Mme., you are wrong to speak in that 
way, you must never say that! Say that which is 
true, and which will become all the more quickly 


54 


How to Practice 


and completely true the more often you think it: 
I am on the way to recovery!” 

“And you, Mme?” 

“It is this bad time of year that brings me to 
you; as soon as I am in the street, my eyes fill 
with water; I have tried lotions . . . everything!” 

“Ah! Well, now you will try an infusion of 
suggestion and you will see! Tell yourself firmly 
that your eyes will not fill with water when you 
go out and they will not!” 

“And you? Sciatica? Well you must leave it 
behind you here ! I shall be very happy to receive 
it, and I will throw it into the rubbish basket!” 

“I shall be only too pleased to leave it with 
you !” 

“And you, a sore throat? You must make 
your suggestions regularly and calmly; there are 
two conditions necessary for suggestions to work 
well; first, you must make it with the certainty 
that it will make your trouble disappear, and 
secondly you must make it without effort; if you 
fail it is because you have made efforts, and then 
you obtain exactly the contrary of that which 
you desire.” 

“You, the blues!” 

“They tell me it will go away.” 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 55 

“So it will, and then you can wish it a pleas¬ 
ant journey!” 

(A voice.) “What is it, the blues?” 

“Sad and gloomy thoughts.” 

(A man.) “I, Sir, have pains everywhere; all 
I can think of is how I suffer.” 

“Those are very fine ideas! You must not 
think thus! I say this to all: as soon as you feel 
a pain, put it very politely outside the door, with 
all the ceremony due to it; think of your pain 
if you like, but set it at defiance by saying to it: 
Ah! my friend, up to the present it is you who 
have had a hold on me, but from now onwards 
it is I who have a hold upon you!” 


I 


Coue Conducting a Clinic in his House 





















Courtesy Cleveland Plain Dealer 







































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^PP^apr ijpjSI 











SECOND PART 


EXAMPLES AND EXPERIMENTS 
WHICH SHOW TWO THINGS: 
FIRSTLY, THAT EVERY IDEA THAT 
WE PUT INTO THE MIND BECOMES 
A REALITY (WITHIN THE LIMIT 
OF POSSIBILITY, BE IT UNDER¬ 
STOOD). SECONDLY, THAT CON¬ 
TRARY TO WHAT IS GENERALLY BE¬ 
LIEVED, IT IS NOT THE WILL 
WHICH IS THE FIRST FACULTY OF 
MAN, BUT THE IMAGINATION. 












M. Coue speaking to new patients: 

“I am going to explain to you in a few words 
what autosuggestion is. Presently I am going 
to demonstrate to you two things, by certain 
experiments which some of you have already 
made, and then upon those who have not yet 
done so. 

“The first of these two points is this: What¬ 
ever idea we put in our mind, never mind 
what that idea may be, becomes true for us, even 
if it be actually untrue. The same occurrence 
seen by ten different persons is seen from ten dif¬ 
ferent points of view. Thus when a crime is 
committed, you may have thirty persons who 
have witnessed it. Good! From the witness 
box at the trial, you will hear thirty different 
accounts, because none of the persons have seen 
the act from the same aspect. To one it appears 
white, to another black. 

“Further, every idea that we put into the mind 
becomes a reality in so far as it is within the 
realms of possibility, naturally (I make this re¬ 
servation, because if we think a thing that is im¬ 
possible—such as having lost a leg that a new one 

59 


6o 


How to Practice 


will grow in its place—there is no chance that 
such an idea will be realized.) But if we put a 
thought in the mind that is possible, it becomes a 
reality for us. Thus you think: I do not sleep at 
night, and you do not sleep! What is insomnia ? 
It is the idea that when you go to bed, you will not 
sleep! The person who sleeps well at night is 
the person who knows very well that in going to 
bed, he will sleep well! It is sufficient to think: 
I am constipated, to become constipated! It is the 
idea that we have that unless we take such and 
such a medicine, we shall not have an evacuation 
of the bowels every day. It is true, for if some¬ 
one were to introduce surreptitiously into your 
box of pills or cachets, cachets containing starch 
or bread pills, having the identical outward ap¬ 
pearance of your usual cachets or pills, your 
bowels would work in exactly the same manner 
as if you had taken your pill of extract of rhubarb, 
or a cachet containing cascara! But of course, 
only on the condition that you knew nothing 
whatever about it! It is the same with those 
injections of distilled water that they give to 
patients, telling them that they are injections of 
morphia! They believe that it is morphia and 
they feel relieved! It is sufficient to think: it 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 61 

has frozen after the thaw, I am sure to fall! If 
you say that, you may be quite certain of the 
result! Those who have no fear of falling do not 
fall. 

“You see the importance of this point, because 
as every idea that we put in the mind becomes a 
reality (in the realm of possibility) if, being ill 
either physically or otherwise, we put in our minds 
the idea that we can be cured, we become cured! 

“The second thing that these experiments will 
show is, that contrary to that which is generally 
accepted, it is not the WILL which is the first 
faculty of man, but the IMAGINATION. We 
say we can do everything by the will; I am going 
to show you that such is not the case; every time 
that there is a conflict between the will and the 
imagination, not only do we not do that which 
we wish, but we do exactly the contrary! If, 
being unable to sleep during the night, you make 
no efforts to go to sleep, you remain calm and 
quiet in your bed; but if you have the misfor¬ 
tune to try and make efforts to do so, you toss 
and turn from side to side, cursing and swearing! 
You get into an overexcited condition, instead 
of one of repose which you seek. Your state of 
mind is: I WILL go to sleep, but I CANNOT! 


62 


How to Practice 


You obtain the contrary of that which you seek! 
This is the example of insomnia. 

SECOND EXAMPLE. Forgetting a name. 
You say: I will remember the name of Mrs. . . . 
but I CANNOT! I have forgotten it! And 
you do not remember it; then you say to 
yourself: I shall remember it presently! And as 
a matter of fact, the idea in your mind: I have 
forgotten; is replaced by the idea: I shall remem¬ 
ber, and you interrupt yourself later in conversa¬ 
tion to say: Ah! It was Mrs. So and So of whom 
I wished to speak! 

THIRD EXAMPLE. Uncontrollable laugh¬ 
ter. You must have all noticed the greater the 
efforts you make not to laugh, in certain cir¬ 
cumstances the more impossible it becomes, and 
the louder you laugh! State of mind: I WILL 
stop laughing, but I CANNOT! 

FOURTH EXAMPLE. A cyclist learning to 
ride. He is on the road; he perceives an obstacle 
in the distance, a stone, a dog, etc., and says to 
himself: Whatever happens I WILL not run into 
it! He bends over the handle bars for fear of 
running into the obstacle, but the greater the ef¬ 
forts he makes to avoid it, the more surely does 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 63 

he run into it! State of mind: I WILL avoid 
that obstacle, but I CANNOT. 

FIFTH EXAMPLE. The stammerer. The 
more a person who stammers tries to speak nor¬ 
mally, the more he stammers! If he says to 
himself: Now I must say good-day, but I WILL 
not stammer! he will find that he will stammer 
all the more, and he starts ten times! State of 
mind: I WILL stop stammering, but I CAN¬ 
NOT! 

“Therefore I repeat, that every time the WILL 
and the IMAGINATION come in conflict, not 
only can we not do that which we wish, but we 
do precisely the contrary. Because we have with¬ 
in us two individuals, the conscious Self whom we 
know or think we know, and behind him is a 
second individual that we may call the unconscious 
Self, or the sub-conscious or the imagination of 
whom we take no notice. But we are very wrong 
not to take notice of him, because it is he who 
guides us. If we can manage to guide this second 
individual CONSCIOUSLY, who up to the pres¬ 
ent has guided us, we shall then be able to guide 
ourselves. 

“Here is a comparison that I will give you. 
Compare yourself to a person seated in a carriage, 


64 


How to Practice 


with a horse harnessed to it; but as if by mistake 
when harnessing it, we forgot to put on the reins. 
If you give the horse a touch with the whip and 
say: Gee up! the horse goes on; but where will 
he go? He goes anywhere he likes, to left, to 
right, forwards or backwards; and as he drags 
you behind him in the carriage, he takes you where 
it pleases him to go. Now if you can manage to 
put the reins on the horse, by this help you will 
be able to guide him to the place to which you 
wish to go, and as he draws you behind him, you 
will arrive at that place eventually. You will 
understand still better on seeing and trying some 
experiments. 

EXPERIMENTS 

“I will ask someone to establish consciously 
upon his mind this conflict between the will and 
the imagination: I wish to do such and such a 
thing, but I cannot do it! Now you, Mile., will 
you try to experiment? Will you clasp your 
hands as tightly as you possibly can, until they 
begin to tremble; give me all your strength, I am 
greedy, I want it all! (The young girl stretches 
her arms in front of her and clasps her hands and 
locks them together until they tremble.) “There 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 


now say to yourself: I will open my hands, but I 
CANNOT, I CANNOT! your hands lock tighter 
and tighter, always tighter!” (One sees the 
fingers of the girl lock themselves more tightly, 
her hands tremble, and her features contract with 
the effort she is making.) “Your hands are 
locked together as if they were always going to 
remain so, in spite of all your efforts, and the 
more you try to separate them, the more tightly 
they become locked! Now say to yourself: I 
CAN! (One sees that the girl’s hands relax and 
drop apart.) “You see that it is sufficient to think 
a thing to make it become true, even if it is ab¬ 
surd! And truly, there is nothing more absurd 
than to think that you cannot open your hands 
and not be able to; just because you think: I 
CANNOT. (A patient.) “Yes, I understand, 
it is sufficient to say: I will, in order to become 
cured!” 

M. Coue. “But you have not understood me at 
all! If you say to yourself; I will get well! your 
imagination, which is of a very contrary disposi¬ 
tion, will most likely say: You “will” to be well, do 
you, well, my friend, you can go on expecting so! 
When you give the preference to the will, the 
imagination, which as I have said is very con- 


66 


How to Practice 


trary, just thwarts you! Do not say therefore: 
I WILL get well! But say: I am keeping on 
getting better.” 

(The patient.) “All the specialists I have seen 
up to the present have told me that I must exercise 
my will!” 

M. Coue. “Well, they have put their foot in 
it, one and all!!!” 

(Another patient, who is being treated for 
insomnia.) “Yes, one of BernheinTs pupils also 
told me to use the will; he tried to put me to 
sleep for a year and a half, but without being able 
to do so. Seeing that he was not able to obtain 
any results, he said to me: You will never be 
cured, you must put up with it and be contented 
with your lot, and learn to bear your cross!” 

M. Coue. “M. S. . . . suffered with insomnia 
for 35 years, and for the last four nights he has 
slept!” 

(The patient.) “This morning I slept until six 
o’clock; when I woke I thought it was eleven 
o’clock at night and that I was going to have 
another night of sleeplessness, but then I heard 
the noises in the streets and found that it was 
already morning!” 

M. Coue. “Well let us return to our experi- 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 67 


ments! Now, sir, you saw how Mile, did the 
experiment, will you stretch out your hands and 
make the experiment for yourself. It is a very 
good one, also the one with the stiff arm and 
the clenched fist.” (The experiment is made 
upon the neurotic man; he does not understand 
the idea of the experiment, and cannot keep his 
hands closed.) “I am pleased that this hitch has 
occurred, because many people believe that it de¬ 
pends upon my will. I asked Monsieur to get into 
a certain state of mind, but he has not known how 
to do it; naturally the experiment cannot succeed! 
Listen, you must try to make the experiment 
thinking all the while: I CANNOT, and say 
rapidly aloud: I CANNOT, CANNOT, CAN¬ 
NOT ! and while saying the word, try and unlock 
your hands; and if you are really thinking: I 
CANNOT, you will not be able to unclasp them. 
There, that is good! As for me, I am always right 
even when I seem to be wrong! For it is not what 
I say that happens, it is what the person thinks! 
What I wish to prove to you is that your thought 
materializes. Only you must not try this ex¬ 
periment on yourself, as you might imagine it 
has to be done, because you have to be in a cer¬ 
tain state of mind such as I have asked of you 


68 


How to Practice 


in order to succeed. When a person does not 
know how to think, or rather directs his thought 
badly, I teach him how to guide it by repeating 
CANNOT, CANNOT, very quickly so that he 
is unable to think: I CAN! You are not con¬ 
vinced, Sir, but you have taken notice of what 
I have said, and you laugh which is a good sign! 
Do not try to do this experiment alone, for gener¬ 
ally you will not be in the right condition, the 
experiment will fail and you will lose confidence.” 

M. Coue then makes other experiments upon a 
child and a young man. 

M. Coue (to a child). ‘‘Take this pen between 
your fingers and say to yourself: I would like to 
let it fall, but I CANNOT! (The child takes the 
pen and holds it, and tries to let it fall while think¬ 
ing, I cannot. The more he thinks, I cannot, the 
tighter his fingers grasp it.) “Now think: I CAN ! 
(the pen falls immediately to the ground).” 

M. Coue (to another child). “Get up, my 
little man, you are going to try and give the little 
boy over there a blow of the fist on the head, 
saying to yourself: I would like to hit him, but 
I CANNOT! And you will not be able to do so; 
it will be as if a cushion were there which was 
stopping your fist from touching his head!” 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 69 

M. Coue (to a young man). “Get up and say 
to yourself: My legs are stiff, I want to walk 
properly, but I CANNOT! As you say: CAN¬ 
NOT, try to walk; you cannot, you feel you will 
fall!” (The young man rises, stiffens his legs 
and tries to walk, but stumbles and is on the 
point of falling.) “Now say: I CAN walk!” 
(The young man loses his stiffness and begins to 
walk.) “Now say to yourself: I am glued to 
my chair, I would like to get up, but I CAN¬ 
NOT!” (The young man tries to rise while 
thinking: I cannot, but the greater the efforts he 
makes to rise, the more he appears fastened to 
his chair.) “Think now: I am no longer glued 
to my chair, I CAN rise!” (The young man 
rises easily from the chair.) 

M. Coue. “You see that all ideas we put into 
the mind become a reality when they are within 
the limits of possibility, only you must always 
think in the right way and with continuity. If 
during a dozen seconds you think: I CANNOT, 
in the right way, and at the end of that time sub¬ 
stitute the idea I CAN in the mind, then though 
your first thought was: I CANNOT, you will 

find that you can and the experiment will fail.” 

* 


* * 







THIRD PART 


suggestions: (a) general. 

SPECIAL FOR EACH AILMENT 


M. Coue addressing everyone: 

“Now that you have really understood me, I 
am going to ask you to shut your eyes; so that 
you may not be disturbed by external objects; 
when the eyes are closed one is calmer, and one 
listens better! 

“And say to yourselves that all the words I am 
going to say to you will fix, engrave and print 
themselves upon your mind, and that they will 
remain there always fixed, engraved and printed, 
and that this will happen without your will or 
knowledge, in fact, perfectly unconsciously on 
your part, and that you and your whole organism 
will obey them; because everything I am going to 
say is for your own good, and for the purpose 
of helping you, and therefore you will accept them 
all the more easily. 

“I say to you that from now onwards all the 
physical functions of your body will improve with 
you, but particularly those of digestion, which 
are the most important. Therefore, three times 
each day regularly, in the morning, at mid-day 
and in the evening, you will be hungry and will 
eat with great pleasure, without, of course, eating 

73 


74 


How to Practice 


too much. Above all you will be careful to mas¬ 
ticate your food well. (I speak to all, but more 
especially to those persons suffering from the 
liver, stomach or intestines), so be very careful to 
masticate your food well, so that it is reduced to 
a sort of soft paste before you swallow it. In 
these conditions digestion will be accomplished 
easily, if not at once, then little by little it will 
become so; and you will find that the sensations 
of discomfort, heaviness nad pain in the stomach 
that you have been in the habit of experiencing 
will disappear gradually. 

“And if any of you suffer from enteritis, you 
will find that it will gradually diminish, that is 
to say that the intestinal inflammation will dis¬ 
appear, and that the mucus or membrane which 
accompanied it will also vanish. If you have a 
dilatation of the stomach, you will find that your 
stomach will regain the elasticity and strength 
which it has lost, that it will gradually resume its 
normal size, and that it will execute more and 
more easily those movements which pass the food 
it contains into the intestines, and will thus facili¬ 
tate intestinal digestion. 

“Na^irally as the digestion improves, assimi¬ 
lation viH improve also (I say this for everyone, 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 75 

but especially for those persons who are weakly) 
your organism will profit by the food it receives 
and will use it to make blood, muscles, strength, 
energy, in fact life itself. You will find that day 
by day you will become stronger and more vigor¬ 
ous, and that the feelings of weakness and weari¬ 
ness which you have had will disappear, giving 
place to a sense of strength and vigor; so that 
should there be any anaemic condition in you, 
your anaemia will leave you; your blood will be¬ 
come richer in quality and color and will take 
on those qualities of the blood of a person who is 
in good health. In these conditions anaemia is 
bound to leave you, taking away with it all the 
host of miseries that always follow in its train. 

“I add for those persons whom it may concern, 
that from now onwards the menstrual period will 
take place normally. It will take place every 28 
days, and will last 4 days neither more or less, 
neither too much nor too little in quantity. You 
will suffer no pain either before, during or after 
its course, neither in the kidneys, pit of the 
stomach, head nor anywhere else; and not only 
will you not suffer pain, but you will not feel that 
sort of nervous excitement which many women 
experience at this time. In fact I tell you this 


76 


How to Practice 


is essentially a natural function, and that it will 
take place normally and will not trouble you in any 
way at all. 

“Naturally with the digestion and assimilation 
functioning properly, the evacuation of the bowels 
will take place very regularly. I must insist upon 
the point, for it is very important, because it is 
the sine qua non of good health. Therefore to* 
morrow, the day after tomorrow, and every day 
without exception, as soon as you get out of bed 
in the morning (or 20 minutes after breakfast, 
you may choose which you prefer) you will ex¬ 
perience an imperative desire to evacuate the 
bowels; and you will always obtain a satisfactory 
result, without having to recourse to medicine or 
any artificial means whatever. 

“I add that tonight, tomorrow night and every 
night in future, as soon as you wish to go bo 
sleep, you will do so until that time in the morn¬ 
ing at which you wish to awake; you will sleep 
calmly and soundly, without nightmare, so that 
when you awake you will feel very well, in fact 
gay, happy and quite rested. And you will always 
sleep in this way, in whatever place you may be, 
and in whatever circumstances you find yourself; 
and whatever the weather may be, whether it is 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 77 

cold or hot, blows a gale or is calm, whether it 
rains, snows or freezes, you will sleep a deep calm 
sleep without nightmare; I do not say that your 
sleep will be without dreams, but if you do dream 
your dreams will be pleasant ones and will not 
disturb you. 

“Further, the digestion, assimilation, evacua¬ 
tion of the bowels, and sleep all being good, I say 
that if you are in any way nervous, this nervous¬ 
ness will disappear and give place to a sensation 
of peace, and you will find that you will become 
gradually more and more master of yourself, both 
from a physical as well as from a mental point 
of view. All your symptoms will gradually dis¬ 
appear, or at least you will not experience them 
so frequently, and the morbid feelings and fancies 
that used to harass you formerly, will fade and 
vanish. 

“Finally and above all, and this is most essen¬ 
tial for everyone, if up to the present you have 
felt a certain distrust of yourself, this distrust 
from now onwards, will gradually disappear, and 
will give place to a feeling of confidence in your¬ 
self, YOU WILL HAVE CONFIDENCE IN 
YOURSELF, you hear me, YOU WILL HAVE 
CONFIDENCE IN YOURSELF. I repeat it, 


78 


How to Practice 


and this confidence will enable you to do what 
you want to do well, even very well, whatever it 
may be, on condition, naturally, that it is reason¬ 
able (and it is reasonable to wish to obtain phy¬ 
sical, mental and moral health). Therefore when¬ 
ever you wish to do a thing that is reasonable, a 
thing which it is your duty to do, believe that as 
it is possible, the thing is easy. In consequence— 
such words as: Difficult. . . Impossible ... I can¬ 
not ... It is stronger than I ... I cannot help it 
. . . I cannot prevent myself from . . . these words 
that we have constantly upon the lips, will dis¬ 
appear completely from your vocabulary; they 
are not English, understand me, they are 
NOT ENGLISH! What is English is: IT IS 
EASY . . . and I CAN! With these words you 
can accomplish absolute wonders. Believing that 
the thing which you wish to do is easy, it becomes 
so for you, although it may appear difficult to 
others. And you will do this thing quickly and 
well, with pleasure, without fatigue, without ef¬ 
fort; while, on the other hand, had you con¬ 
sidered it difficult or impossible, it would have be¬ 
come so for you, simply because you would have 
thought it so!” 


FOURTH PART 


SPECIAL SUGGESTIONS FOR EACH 

AILMENT 








Pain .—To those who have pain, in whatever 
part of the body it may be, in the foot, the leg, 
the knee, the back, the side, it does not matter 
where, I say to you that from this moment the 
cause of this pain, call it arthritis or by any other 
name, this cause will diminish and vanish, and 
the cause having disappeared, the effects which it 
caused will in their turn disappear also. And 
every time that I say to you that your pain is 
going, it is the same thing as a plane which takes 
a shaving of wood off the plank over which it is 
passed! And if this pain seems to come back 
sometimes, instead of thinking about it and be¬ 
moaning it as you used to do, say to yourself: I 
can send it away and without the least effort! 
But if you doubt it, you will not succeed, there¬ 
fore be sure not to say: I will try and send it 
away! for to try expresses doubt. Therefore you 
will affirm to yourself that you can do this, and 
send the pain away (and this applies equally to 
mental and moral distress as well as physical). 
Therefore every time that you have a pain, phy¬ 
sical or otherwise, you will go quietly to your 
room (it is better if you can do this, but you can 

8l 


82 


How to Practice 


do it also in the middle of the road if necessary), 
but if you go to your room, sit down and shut 
your eyes, pass your hand lightly across your 
forehead if it is mental distress, or upon the part 
that hurts if it is pain in any part of the body, 
and repeat the words : It is going, it is going, etc. 
Very rapidly, even at the risk of gabbling, it is of 
no importance. The essential idea is to say: it is 
going, it is going, so quickly, that it is impossible 
for a thought of contrary nature to force itself 
between the words. We thus actually think it is 
going, and as all ideas that we fix upon the mind 
become a reality for us, the pain, physical or 
mental vanishes. And should the pain return, 
repeat the process io, 20, 50, 100, 200 times if 
necessary, for it is better to pass the entire day 
saying: It is going! than to suffer pain and com¬ 
plain about it. Be more patient than your pain, 
drive it back to its last entrenchments! And you 
will find that the more you use this process, the 
less you will have to, that is to say, that if today 
you use it 50 times, tomorrow you will only use 
it 48, and the next day 46 and so on ... so that at 
the end of a relatively short space of time, you 
will have no need to use it at all. 

Lungs: And for those persons who have any 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 83 


trouble with the lungs, I tell you that your organ¬ 
ism will become ever stronger and more vigorous, 
thanks to your improved powers of assimilations, 
and that it will find within itself those elements 
which are necessary to repair any lesions which 
may exist in the lungs, bronchial tubes and chest. 
In proportion as these lesions heel, you will find 
that the symptons from which you have suffered 
will diminish, and will end by disappearing com¬ 
pletely. If you have expectorations, you will 
find that they will gradually diminish in quantity 
and will become more and more easy; if you suf¬ 
fer from a feeling of oppression, this will become 
more and more rare; if you cough, your fits of 
coughing will become less and less violent, less 
frequent, and will finally disappear completely 
and absolutely. 

Eyes: To those persons who suffer from their 
eyes, I say that any lesions you may have in the 
eyes will heal little by little, and will finally dis¬ 
appear, so that the eyes will gradually become 
better and better, that is to say, that every day 
you will see further, more clearly and more 
sharply. 

Myopia: And for you, Mile., who suffer from 
myopia, your crystalline lens which is too elom 


8 4 


How to Practice 


gated, and which reflects the image in front of the 
retina, will flatten little by little; the image will 
gradually be produced further and further away, 
and at the end of a certain time the lens will have 
its normal thickness, and the sight will be normal. 

Incontinence in Children: As for you, my 
child, the accident that happens to you at night, 
will not happen again. It has not occurred for a 
fortnight and it will not occur again. From now 
onwards every time that you wish to urinate, you 
will wake up, always, ALWAYS; when you 
awake you will accomplish this duty at once, and 
directly you get back into bed, as soon as your 
head touches the pillow, you will fall asleep and 
sleep soundly until the morning, or until another 
desire to get up awakens you, and you will get 
up, but will sleep again directly. Now you can 
consider yourself cured, but go on with your 
suggestion, say always: Everyday and in every 
way I am getting better and better. What you 
think will produce itself, and you will benefit from 
it all your life. 

Lameness in a Child: As for you, my little 
one, whose right leg is not so strong as the other, 
your organism will become stronger and stronger 
and will find within itself all those elements which 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 85 

are necessary to cause the formation of new mus¬ 
cular cells, which, adding themselves to those 
cells, which are already there, will increase 
the size of those muscles and will make them 
stronger; and little by little your leg will become 
fatter. Every day you will notice that the slight 
limp you have will become less and less, and will 
end by disappearing completely. 

Nervous Fits: And for you who have nervous 
fits, you must not have any more and you will 
not have them; and if in spite of all, a fit seems 
to be coming on, you will always know it before¬ 
hand, ALWAYS, you hear what I say; and it will 
produce certain symptoms which will warn you, 
and you will hear a voice, MINE, which will say 
to you as quickly as lightning: You will have not 
this fit, it is going, it has gone! And the fit will 
have disappeared before it even had the time to 
make its appearance. 

Children's Studies: And for all you children, 
I say that from now onwards you will be good 
children, obedient, attentive to your parents, 
grand-parents, uncles and masters, in fact to¬ 
wards everyone who has a right to your respect 
and your obedience. When they tell you to do 
something or make a remark, I know that you 


86 


How to Practice 


will take notice of it. Generally when anyone 
tells children to do something or make a remark, 
they are apt to think that it is done or said to 
annoy them, to “bore” them, as you say! But 
now you know that when anyone reproaches or 
reprimands you, it is not done to annoy you, but 
that it is done for your own good. And far from 
having a grudge against the person who made 
the remark to you, you will be grateful to him 
for having made it. And further, I say, that you 
will like work, YOU WILL LIKE YOUR 
WORK, and as the work which you have to do 
at present consists entirely of your studies, you 
will like to study all those things which you have 
to learn, and especially those that you do not care 
for at present. Generally children imagine that 
they do not like certain lessons and they say: Oh! 
I loathe arithematic, I hate history! They only 
hate it because they imagine they do; but if you 
thought, on the contrary, that you would like a 
certain lesson, you will like it! And the proof of 
this is that in the future, you will notice that you 
will learn everything very easily, and that you will 
like all your lessons; so that from now onwards 
when you are in school and the master is explain¬ 
ing a lesson, you will keep your attention fixed 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 


on everything he says, without taking any notice 
of the stupid things that your companions may be 
doing or saying, and without doing them your¬ 
self. And as you are clever, you hear me, YOU 
ARE CLEVER, you will understand what you 
learn, and you will place everything in the store¬ 
house of your memory, from whence you will 
draw them when you have need of them. When 
you work alone, in school or at home, you will 
keep your whole attention fixed exclusively upon 
the duty which you have to perform, or on the 
lesson which you have to learn, and thus your 
work will always be irreproachable. 

Liver: And for those persons who have any¬ 
thing the matter with the liver, I say that from 
this moment your organism and your unconscious 
Self will do all that is necessary in order to heal 
any lesions that may exist; and if there is simply 
some abnormality, that this abnormality will dis¬ 
appear. In both cases your organism will func¬ 
tion normally; it will secrete the necessary amount 
of bile of right quality, and it will flow naturally 
into the intestines where it aids intestinal diges¬ 
tion. And particularly for those who suffer from 
hepatic colic, I say that from now onwards your 
liver will secrete alkaline bile instead of acid bile 


88 


How to Practice 


as it used to do; this acid bile, as I told you be¬ 
fore, leaves a deposit in the bile duct which ac¬ 
cumulates and forms gallstones; if you have at 
the present moment a collection of these gall¬ 
stones; it is probable that they will not dissolve, 
and that every time they pass into the bile duct, 
they will give you colic, but as soon as you have 
got rid of them all, they will not form again. 

Heart: And for those persons who have any¬ 
thing the matter with the heart, I say that from 
this moment your organism and your uncon¬ 
scious Self will do what is necessary to cause the 
lesion which you may have to disappear; your 
heart will function normally, the circulation will 
improve, and the unpleasant palpitations will be¬ 
come gradually more, and more rare, and will 
finally disappear completely. 

Child's Heart: For you, my child, I say that 
the sore place you have in your heart will go 
away; (to the child’s mother). It is very prob¬ 
able that the lesion will remain in the heart, but 
the organism will do what is necessary to establish 
a sort of compensation, so that although the child 
will not be cured, she will no longer suffer, and 
will be able to do everything that other people 
do. It is the same as a case I had of a boy whom 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 89 

I treated in 1912. He was not cured, because he 
was invalided twice during the war on account of 
his heart, but he can ride a bicycle, play football, 
and goes for excursions. And the proof that he 
suffers no longer is that he was married three 
months ago! 

Lesions of the Brain. Paralysis: As for you, 
Mile. I say that those lesions which have occurred 
in your brain (caused by encephilitis) ; and which 
are getting better, will continue to do so; in pro¬ 
portion as they disappear you will find that the 
symptoms which they produce will also vanish; 
that fatigue and lassitude which makes you seem 
dull, will gradually diminish and disappear; the 
feeling of emptiness which you experience will 
give place to one of strength and vigor; YOU 
WILL WANT TO WORK, you must work, 
even if it is only to dig a hole in the garden and 
then another one to fill up the first. IT IS 
ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY THAT YOU 
SHOULD FEEL THE DESIRE TO WORK! 
Your mother tells you to work, and I am speak¬ 
ing through her, it is I, I, who speak to you, and 
(in an imperative tone of voice) if you were with 
me, I should insist that you should. 

The Nose: And for you, Sir, who are suffer- 


90 


How to Practice 


ing from the nose, I say that your organism and 
your unconscious Self will do all that is necessary 
in order that this slight lesion, or rather the 
irration that you feel in the nose will disappear; 
you will find that your chronic bronchitis will 
grow less and in time will disappear; as for your 
asthma there is no need to speak of that for it is 
cured, QUITE CURED! 

Pains in the Legs: For you, I say that you will 
find the pains which you have in the legs will dis¬ 
appear, and they will not leave you for a short 
time only, but entirely. Do not fear their return, 
above all; say to yourself. They will not come 
back! And you will find that the stiffness which 
you feel will disappear, and that the pains you 
have in the stomach will also diminish; if you 
have any internal trouble your unconscious Self 
will do all that is necessary to make it disappear. 

Kidneys , Bladder: For those persons who may 
have lesions in the kidneys or bladder, I say that 
these lesions will be cured little by little, and after 
some time they will be completely cured and will 
disappear; you will no longer suffer any sort of 
pain, more or less violent as you have been ac¬ 
customed to, in either the kidneys or bladder; 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 91 

your urine will become normal and will no longer 
contain a deposit. 

Gravel: For those who suffer from gravel, I 
say the nourishment of your body will continue to 
improve and will become more normal and reg¬ 
ular; the kidneys will no longer form an excess 
of uric acid, and you will help them by drinking 
a large amount of liquid, the more you take, the 
less likely will be the formation of uric acid 
crystals, and in consequence you will suffer less 
pain. 

Depression: And for those who suffer from 
depression, I say that every day you are becoming 
better and better; this depression will grow less 
and less, and will give place to a sensation of 
physical and mental strength such as you never 
hoped to possess; and you will become completely 
master of yourself both physically and mentally. 
The time will come when you will be able to work 
all day long without feeling tired, but you must 
take care not to make any efforts, and also to 
conserve your strength, instead of wasting it as 
you have been doing. 

Tumor on the Tongue: And for you, Sir, who 
had a growth on the tongue which necessitated 
a surgical operation, I say to you that your organ- 


9 2 


How to Practice 


ism will do all that is necessary in order to cause 
these parasitical cells to disappear; they will be 
replaced by perfectly healthy cells, which will 
repair the damage done by the unhealthy cells. 

Abscess: And to any persons who may have 
an abscess, I say that your organism will do all 
that is necessary in order to make them gradually 
disappear; the inflammation will subside, the 
quantity of pus will diminish each day, the scar 
will form, and a complete cure will follow. 

Tremblings: And for those persons whom it 
concerns, I say that whatever may be the nature 
of the lesions that you may have in the brain or 
the nervous system, and which have caused the 
symptoms which you have had . . . stiffness and 
trembling, and the difficulty you have of keeping 
upright, the pains in the back and the slight 
paralysis you have of the right side ... I tell you 
that these lesions will heal gradually day by day, 
and will continue to do so, and the cause of the 
trouble will disappear, so that the effects which 
it has produced will also disappear in the same 
proportion. You will find that the stiffness will 
diminish and that you will be able to hold your¬ 
self erect more and more easily; the trembling 
which you feel in the hand and arm will lesson, 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 93 

you will feel yourself becoming stronger and 
stronger and more and more sure of yourself; 
when you walk, walk slowly with rather long 
steps, taking care to separate the legs; when you 
advance the left leg, place it before the right one, 
and when you advance the right leg, place it be¬ 
fore the left one; in this way you will keep your 
balance. 

Varicose Veins: To those persons who have 
varicose veins, I say that your organism and your 
unconscious Self will do all that is necessary in 
order to establish a sort of compensation; the 
tissue of your veins will resume their normal 
strength and consistency; but it is not sufficient 
that the veins be cured, the varicose ulcer must 
also be cured. I say that your organism will do 
all that is necessary to build up a series of healthy 
bells within the wound, so that it will disappear, 
the edges of the wound will gradually draw to¬ 
gether, a scar will form, and the cure will be 
complete. 

Phlebitis: I say to those persons suffering 
from phlebitis, that your organism and your un¬ 
conscious Self will do all that is necessary in 
order to establish a sort of compensation; in 
phlebitis the larger vein is blocked by a clot of 


94 


How to Practice 


blood, and naturally the blood does not flow in as 
quickly as it flows out; this causes a swelling; 
therefore your unconscious Self will do all that 
is necessary to establish compensation, that is, a 
vein beside the affected one will enlarge so as to 
permit a free flow of the blood. 

Hernia: For you who suffer from hernia, I 
say that from now onwards your organism and 
your unconscious Self will do all that is necessary 
in order to gradually form a scar in the peritoneal 
tissue which was ruptured; your intestine used to 
pass through this passage and produce the hernia ; 
from now onwards your unconscious Self will 
gradually cause the ruptured tissue to heal up 
from either end (of the kind of button-hole 
which exists), so that it will become smaller and 
smaller, and the hernia will be reduced in size, 
when the closing of the hole is complete, the 
hernia will have disappeared. 

Growths: For those persons who have an ex- 
crescene of growth, of whatever nature they may 
be, whether is be of a fibrous nature or a gland 
. . . I say that your organism and your unconscious 
Self will do all that is necessary in order to cause 
the disappearance of these parasitical cells; in pro¬ 
portion as their destruction is carried out, the 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 


95 


growth will lose a proportional amount of its size 
and hardness, and when reabsorbtion is complete, 
the growth will have disappeared. 

Loss of Memory: To those persons who com¬ 
plain of loss of memory, I say that you have lost 
your memory simply because you have thought 
you have done so! Loss of memory only occurs 
because one thinks it is lost! You have only to 
think that your memory will return and it will! 

Vices, {Drink) Etc.: And for those who feel 
strongly attracted by certain things, I say this 
attraction will be replaced by an equally strong 
repulsion, and the trouble from which you suf¬ 
fered will end. 

Doubts: For those who suffer from doubts, I 
say that the incretitude and doubts from which 
you have suffered will give place to a feeling of 
certitude and you will find that which you seek. 

Sad Thoughts and Ideas: For those persons 
who have sad thoughts and ideas, I say that from 
now onwards these thoughts will become more 
and more rare; they will become less tenacious 
and will cease to cling to you; and every time 
that they may return, you will employ the pro¬ 
cess : It is going, it is going! Put them outside 
the door of your mind with all the honors due to 


9 6 


How to Practice 


them! But I want you to realize that it is not 
I who can cure you, it is you who must do so, and 
upon yourself only depends your cure. And this 
is of great importance for you, for if I were a 
healer (and I have explained to you that I am 
not), once you were no longer here, or I was no 
longer with you, I could no longer help you; if 
however, on the contrary, you realize that you 
possess within yourself the power of healing your¬ 
self, you have only to use it every time that it is 
necessary. Further, if you have a tendency to 
melancholy, this tendency will decrease and give 
place to one of gaiety; if you feel yourself 
haunted, followed or pursued by unhealthy ideas, 
fears, aversions or by any morbid ideas that are 
capable of harming you, I say that these ideas will 
pass from your mind, will become as a distant 
cloud, and will finally disappear completely. And 
if instead of fearing these thoughts you look 
them squarely in the face and laugh at them, you 
will have them no more! And above all, do not 
say as one is so often in the havit of saying: I 
am too old ... I shall never get over it ... It has 
lasted too long ... I shall always suffer in this 
way . . . and other things of the same nature, it 
is ABSURD! You must say to yourself that 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 97 

which is true: (and which will become all the 
more quickly and completely true the more you 
think of it), ... I am on the road to recovery . . . 
I am getting better! Every day will add a fresh 
stone to the edifice of your health, and in a short 
time you will be completely cured; this is the state 
of mind in which you must remain and which will 
enable you to make rapid progress toward the 
way to health and make it quickly and completely. 

I am going to count three, and when I say 
“three”, you will come out of the state in which 
you are, you will come out of it very quietly, you 
will be perfectly wideawake, not dazed at all, nor 
tired, but will feel full of life and health; and you 
will always feel thus, healthy and well both phy¬ 
sically and mentally. I count three, ONE . . . 
TWO . . . THREE. 





FIFTH PART 

PATIENTS. 


ADVICE TO 



I 





“Well now, I have given you some very good 
advice! And in order to make this advice a 
reality I say, for AS LONG AS YOU LIVE! 
(I am exacting, I do not ask it for one day, or a 
month, or a year, but for ALL your life), every 
morning before rising and every night when you 
are in bed, you will shut your eyes and you will 
repeat 20 times with the lips, loud enough to 
hear yourself (and in order to save yourself from 
counting, make a sort of rosary with a piece of 
string in which you have tied 20 knots, so that 
you count automatically), the following little sen¬ 
tence: EVERY DAY AND IN EVERY WAY 
I AM GETTING BETTER AND BETTER! 
And when you say this sentence do not think of 
anything in particular, the words “in every way” 
apply to everything. The essential thing is that 
you say these words very simply, as a child would, 
in a very monotonous tone of voice, and above all, 
ABOVE ALL, without EFFORT , that is the 
essential condition, say these words as one says a 
litany in church, it is the best example I can give 

you, thus: Every day, etc.By its repetition 

you will come to impress upon your mind the idea 

IOI 



> > > 


> 



102 


How to Practice 


that EVERY DAY AND IN EVERY WAY I 
AM GETTING BETTER AND BETTER. 
You have seen by the explanations which I have 
given you and by the experiments which you have 
made, that every idea which we put into the mind 
becomes a reality, as long as it is within the limits 
of possibility; therefore if you impress upon your 
mind the idea that you will be cured, a cure will 
follow as a matter of course, and the contrary will 
be produced if you impress upon the mind the 
idea that you are ill. 

“Autosuggestion is a double-edged weapon; 
well used it works wonders, badly used it brings 
nothing but disaster. Up to the present you have 
wielded this weapon unconsciously, and made bad 
suggestions to yourselves, but that which I have 
taught you will prevent from ever again making 
bad autosuggestions, and if you should do so, 
you can only beat yourself upon the breast, and 
say : It is my own fault; entirely my own fault! 

And do not say when you are well: Oh! I am 
all right now, it is useless to go with my sugges¬ 
tion! Tell yourself on the contrary, that it is 
easier to prevent an evil than it is to cure it. How 
long does it take to break a leg? There is a piece 
of orange peel upon the pavement, you step on 



Suggestion and Autosuggestion 103 

it, slip; fall and break a leg; how long does that 
take ? One second, no longer! But how long will 
it take to repair the damage, even with sugges¬ 
tion? Weeks!!! If you had not broken your 
leg, you would not have had the trouble of heal¬ 
ing it; therefore every time that you say your 
suggestion, tell yourself that you brush a piece 
of orange peel out of your way, and so in this 
manner you prevent yourself breaking a limb, 
either physically or mentally! 

If you use your suggestions CONSCIEN¬ 
TIOUSLY you will perform wonders. For the 
result, I do as Mr. Pontius Pilate of illustrious 
memory did, I wash my hands of you; IT DE¬ 
PENDS ENTIRELY UPON YOURSELF! 


SIXTH PART 


AD VERBATIM REPORT OF LECTURE 
DELIVERED BY EMILE COUE IN 
VARIOUS PARTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES ON HIS VISIT HERE IN 
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1 923. 









Ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must pray 
you to excuse me not to speak English so well as I 
would desire to do, but you know I have been 
born a Frenchman. I never lived in England nor 
in America, and it is pretty difficult, for such a 
man to speak English as well as you do, but I hope 
you will be able to understand me. 

I must say to you, first, that I don’t know how 
to thank you for the reception you make me. I 
am quite confused, but I thank you from my 
heart. The best I think I can do is to give you in 
a few words the principles of the method I have 
instituted in Nancy, owing to which results have 
been obtained which others have not been able to 
obtain. 

When people come and see me I tell them first, 
most of them in coming to me think they will find 
an extraordinary man. You see, he is not ex¬ 
traordinary. They think they will find a man 
endowed with an extraordinary power, a sort of 
magic power, owing to which he is able to cure 
people making as I do now (motioning with the 
hands). I am not the man you think I am, not 

107 


io8 


How to Practice 


at all. I am not a healer, as many people call me; 
I am not a magic maker, not in the least. 

I am only a man, a very simple man, as you see; 
a good man, if you like, but only a man. My part 
is not to heal people, but to teach them what they 
can do to heal themselves, or at least to improve 
themselves, and to show them that they will get 
this result by using an instrument which we use 
all our lives long without knowing it—I will say 
autosuggestion. 

Autosuggestion is an instrument which we 
possess at our birth, and from that time, from the 
first day of our birth, we use this instrument dur¬ 
ing the night, during the day. All our dreams 
are the result of autosuggestion. All that we do, 
all that we say, is also the result of autosugges¬ 
tion, unconscious autosuggestion. 

You think perhaps that I exaggerate. I do not 
exaggerate. We use this instrument at the first 
day of our birth. Here is an example I usually 
give. A young baby, two days old, lies in its 
cradle. All at once it cries. 

One of the parents takes it from its cradle. 
The baby ceases crying. The parent puts it again 
into its cradle, and immediately it cries again. 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 


iog 


The parent takes it a second time from its cradle. 
The baby ceases crying, and so on. 

The baby is trying to make suggestion to his 
parents, and very often he succeeds. Unfor¬ 
tunately for the parents, if the parents make them¬ 
selves the autosuggestion that it is necessary for 
them to take the baby from its cradle every time 
it cries, as a consequence it is necessary to spend 
one year or more to have the baby in the arms 
instead of in the bed, where it would be much 
better, and the baby says to himself, “Every time 
I shall desire to be taken from my cradle, I shall 
cry,” and he cries. Isn’t that true? 

If on the contrary the parents let the baby cry 
a minute, a quarter of an hour, half an hour, one 
hour, the baby thinks it is not necessary to cry, 
it is no use, and he doesn’t do it again. 

As I told you before, this instrument, autosug¬ 
gestion, we use it all our lifetime, but we use it 
unconsciously. Autosuggestion is a very bene¬ 
ficial instrument when it is used well, properly. 
It produces very often wonderful effects. It pro¬ 
duces what is called miracles. When it is used 
wrongly, badly, it can produce disasters. 

My part is to show people that they are this 


no 


How to Practice 


instrument in themselves, and to teach them how 
to use it consciously. When you use a dangerous 
instrument consciously, the instrument ceases to 
be dangerous. The danger resides in the ignor¬ 
ance of the danger. When the danger is known, 
that is not so. It is my part to show you how it 
can be done, that it is a very, very simple thing. 
It is so simple that it is difficult to think that such 
a simple thing produces such wonderful effects. 

After having spoken so, before giving you 
counsel, because I give counsels without making 
suggestions, I don’t make any suggestions. I 
don’t use hypnotism—I can say that because I be¬ 
gan by studying hypnotism and practising it dur¬ 
ing a few years, and little by little I have ceased. 
I have abandoned this way, and I have used the 
method which I will expose to you. 

Before giving you counsel, after which I will 
make upon you some experiments which will show 
you the two principles upon which I have built 
my theory, I will explain to you my method of 
conscious autosuggestion. 

Do you hear me well ? 

(A Voice). Talk a little louder. 

M. Coue. Thank you, I will do it. This experi¬ 
ment will show you the two things upon which I 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 


in 


have built my theory of conscious autosuggestion. 
The first one is this: 

Every idea we have in our mind becomes a 
reality, in the domain of possibility. If a thing is 
realizable, it takes place; we must not put such 
ideas into our mind, unless we feel it is possible 
for them to take place. 

For instance, if you have a leg cut off, and you 
imagine the leg will grow again, it is positive it 
will not grow again, because till now we are not 
able to produce such miracles; but if we have sad 
ideas, if we have organs which do not work 
well, if we have pain in a part of our body and 
we imagine that the sad ideas will be replaced 
by pink ideas, that our organs will, little by little, 
function better; that the pain we have, in what¬ 
ever part of the body, will disappear, it takes 
place, because it is possible. 

The idea of sleep creates sleep; the idea of 
sleeplessness creates sleeplessness. What is a per¬ 
son who sleeps well? It is a person who knows 
that when one is in the bed it is for sleep, and he 
sleeps. What is a person who does not sleep 
during the night? It is a person who knows 
that when one is in the bed it is not for to sleep. 
The person knows when he goes to bed that he 


112 


Hozv to Practice 


will not sleep better this night than the preceding 
night. 

The idea of nervous crises creates nervous 
crises. The idea of a bad headache on the day 
when one is invited to dinner at madame so-and- 
so’s, creates a bad headache precisely on the day. 
If a person is invited on Monday, it is on Monday 
that he gets his bad headache. If it is on Thurs¬ 
day, it is on Thursday that he gets his bad head¬ 
ache. 

It is sufficient to think, “I am blind,” ‘‘I am 
deaf,” “I am paralyzed,” to be deaf, blind or 
paralyzed. I will not say that all the people 
who are deaf, blind or paralyzed are so because 
they think they are, but there are many who are 
so only because they think they are. I can show 
it to you because I have seen such people, and it 
is with these people that the so-called miracles 
take place. 

My merit, if I have a merit, is not a great one. 
I have succeeded to cure a man or a person who 
was not ill. It happens very often, very often. 

I will give you an example. Last year, at the 
beginning of the year, a young lady came in to see 
me at Nancy. She was 23 years old. Since the 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 113 

age of 3 years she could not see anything with 
her left eye, absolutely nothing. 

Immediately after the meeting she saw, as you 
see, with the left eye. People who were present 
thought it was a miracle. It was no miracle, 
and I will explain to you. It is very easy. 

When the young lady was a child, 2 years old, 
she got a pain, she got an illness in her left eye, 
and this illness required about a year to be cured. 
During that time she was obliged to have a band¬ 
age on her left eye, and during that time also the 
eye took the habit of not to see, and when the 
bandage was taken off the eye preserved the habit 
of not to see, and this lasted 20 years. It would 
last till now if she had not come to me. I per¬ 
suaded her that she could see, and as it was pos¬ 
sible, she saw. She, understand, she was very 
easy to understand. 

I have seen the same case, or nearly the same 
case, with a paralytic woman. It was in Paris. 
They brought her to me, on the first floor. She 
could not make the least movement with her right 
side. Immediately after the meeting she stood 
up, walked and moved her bad arm as well as the 
other one. 

People thought it was a miracle. It was no 


How to Practice 


114 

miracle, and it is easy to explain. I think that 
at the beginning she got a true paralysis, she got 
a stroke. There was a clot there. 

At this moment the paralysis was true, but little 
by little, as it happens very often, the clot disap¬ 
peared, diminished, and, of course, the true para¬ 
lysis diminished also in the same proportion, but 
the woman always thought, “I am paralyzed/’ and 
she continued to be paralyzed. 

Later on the clot disappeared completely. At 
that moment the true paralysis disappeared also, 
but she continued to have in her mind the idea, 
“I am paralyzed,” and she remained paralyzed. 
I persuaded her she could make the movements 
she desired to make, and she made them. 

What is the conclusion we may draw from this 
first statement? Every idea we have in our 
minds becomes a reality, in the domain of pos¬ 
sibility. Being ill, we put in our minds the idea 
of healing. Healing takes place if healing is pos¬ 
sible; if healing is not possible, it does not take 
place, but in such a case we get the greatest 
improvement it is possible to obtain. 

I will not say that the use of conscious auto¬ 
suggestion must prevent people to take the medi¬ 
cines they are accustomed to take, or to follow 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 115 

the orders of their doctors. Autosuggestion and 
medicine must not be considered as enemies. 

On the contrary, they must be considered as 
good friends, which must help each other, and 
I can tell you one of my greatest desires is to 
introduce in the schools of medicine the study of 
autosuggestion, for the benefit of the doctors and 
therefore for the great benefit of their patients. 

It is not will-power which is the first quality 
of man, but imagination. I repeat it, because it 
is a point in which my method differs from all 
other methods, and owing to which I can obtain 
results where the other methods have failed. It 
is not will power which is the first quality of 
man, but imagination. 

Every time there is a conflict between will 
power and imagination, it is always imagination 
which has the best of it, always, without any 
exception, and in such cases when we say, “I 
want to do such and such a thing, but I can’t 
do it,” not only we don’t do what we are desiring 
to do, but we do exactly the contrary of what we 
are desiring to do, and the greater the will power 
is, the more we do the contrary of what we are 
desiring to do. I will show you that I am right 


n6 


How to Practice 


in giving you some examples which I have chosen 
from my life. 

I take for the first example, sleeplessness. 
Some of you shall say that I am right. If a 
person who does not sleep during the night, does 
not want to sleep, does not make any effort to 
sleep, but lies very quiet in his bed, without 
moving, he will sleep; if on the contrary, the 
person who wants to sleep makes an effort to 
sleep, what happens? When a person tries to 
sleep, the more he is excited, and this person does 
not do exactly what he wants to do. This person 
tries to find sleep, and he finds—wakefulness— 
which is the contrary of sleep. This example is 
known by every one of you. 

So also the forgetting of a name. If it hasn’t 
happened to you, it may still happen. Every time 
you want to find the name of Mrs.—what’s her 
name, you know—the less you can find it. Gen¬ 
erally, after a minute it comes back, but it is 
necessary to analyze this phenomenon, which con¬ 
tains two phenomena. 

You come home and say to your wife or 
husband, or sister or brother, or your mother, 

“Well, I just met Mrs.”—you hesitate. This 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion i\y 

hesitation creates in your mind the idea, “I have 
forgotten.” 

As every idea we have in our mind becomes 
a reality, and as you have this idea in your mind, 
you cannot find the name. You may try, but you 
cannot. You may run, but the name will run 
more quickly than you, and you shall not be able 
to catch it. That has happened to every one 
of you. 

Generally, after a few minutes it comes when 
one ceases trying to find the name, and you say it 
will soon come back. The idea, “I have for¬ 
gotten,” disappeared, after having been replaced 
by the idea, “It will come back,” which in its turn 
comes true, and while conversing you interrupt 
yourself to say, “Oh, it is Mrs. So-and-so.” That 
is an example that is well known. 

Take uncontrollable laughter. Under certain 
circumstances the more we try not to laugh, the 
more we laugh. The more the motorcyclist tries 
to avoid an obstacle on the track, the straighter 
it runs into him. 

It has happened to many of you, I am sure. 
The more the stammerer tries not to stammer, 
the more he stammers, and so on, which puts me 
in mind of the person in such circumstances who 


118 Suggestion and Autosuggestion 

says, “I want to sleep, but I cannot/’ or the one 
who says, “I want to find the name of Mrs. So- 
and-so, but I cannot,” “I want to prevent me 
from stammering, but I cannot.” It is always, 
“I cannot.” 

The imagination is always the best in its con¬ 
flict with will power. It is imagination that is 
the first quality of man, and not the second one. 
You must know that we have in ourselves two 
beings. The first one is the conscious, voluntary 
being which we know, and the second one, behind 
the first being, is another one, the subconscious 
or imaginative being, or imagination, as you call 
it. 

We don’t pay attention to this being, and we 
are perfectly wrong, because it is this second being 
which runs us entirely. 

We all have organs in this part of our body, 
we have a heart, we have a stomach, we have 
kidneys, we have a liver, and so on. 

No one of us has any power upon those organs 
by his own will power, no one. However, those 
organs work; they work even during the night, 
when the conscious being is asleep. They work 
under the influence of the first. The first is the 
subsconscious or unconscious mind. Not only 


ii 9 


■Suggestion and Autosuggestion 

does this unconscious being run, preside over the 
functions of these organs, but it presides also 
over all the functions of our physical body, and 
our moral body, if I can use this expression. 

If it is the second being which runs us, and 
we learn how to run it, through it we learn how 
to run ourselves. Do you understand? I repeat, 
because it is the principal thing. It is our un, 
conscious being which runs us. We learn how 
to run it. Through it we learn to run ourselves. 

It is a sort of little trick. When one learns the 
trick he is able to become master of himself. I 
suppose you have understood. You will under¬ 
stand better in seeing some experiments which 
I generally make—not generally, I always make— 
with people, to let them see, to let them feel that 
what I say is the truth. 

I will show the experiment on myself, and 
afterwards I shall make it with some persons who 
will come to me. I will establish consciously a 
conflict between my imagination and my will 
power. I will press my hands together as tight 
as I can, and put into my mind the idea, “I 
cannot open it.” Now, that I have put this idea 
into my mind, the idea that I cannot open my 


120 


How to Practice 


a number of times when M. Coue has asked 
for these experiments, some people have thought 
they were proposed as having some mysterious 
power, and some people who were more or less 
influenced have come forward, but I trust you 
will understand that this is simply a demonstra¬ 
tion of the power of the imagination over the 
will, and if perhaps two or three from this side 
of the table come forward who will be interested 
to demonstrate, and two or three from this side, 
just in order that he may show you what he 
means by this power of the imagination over the 
will. 

(Several of those seated at the speaker’s table 
offered themselves for the demonstration.) 

M. Coue : In this experiment it is not what 
I shall say which will take place, but what the 
person will think. If they think well, as I shall 
pray them to do, it will take place. If they think 
the contrary, the contrary will take place. I don’t 
try to oblige people to make these experiments. 
It is no hypnotism, it is no suggestion on my part, 
it is only autosuggestion on the part of the person, 
hence you will laugh at me, but it doesn’t matter. 
In every case I am right. 

What is my meaning? I will show you that 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 121 

hands, the more I try to open them the tighter I 
press. 

And now I am ill. It is a true illness that 
I have. It is called contraction, and you have 
seen in your life, every one of you, people who 
are ill in the same manner. You have seen people 
who could not open their hands, for instance, or 
close them, or you have seen people who walk 
with a leg stiff, as if it were wood. Out of a 
hundred, 80 I think cannot do the movements 
they are desiring to do because they think they 
cannot, and they remains all their life long in this 
state, if they preserve in their minds the idea, 
“I cannot.” 

To cure myself when I am ill, I must replace 
in my mind the idea “I cannot” by the idea “I 
can,” and immediately I will feel that I am able 
to. 

(At this point M. Coue gave a demonstration, 
using the above formula.) 

You see, you think I am doing it on purpose. 
I am doing it on purpose, to show you what it is, 
but the experiment is quite true, and I will make 
this experiment with one or two or three persons 
here, if you will be so kind. 

Presiding Officer: Ladies and gentlemen, 


122 


How to Practice 


when we have an idea in our minds, this idea 
becomes very eloquent. I tell the person to close 
his hands and to think, ‘‘I cannot open them.” 
If I see that the person presses his hands tighter 
and tighter and thinks, “I cannot,” I am right, 
he cannot open his hands. 

If, on the contrary, after I have said to the 
person to think, “I cannot,” he opens his hands, 
he has thought “I can.” Am I not right? You 
understand. It is difficult to say the contrary. 
I ask every person if he understands me, because 
if the person does not understand, of course it 
does not take place. 

(Addressing a lady at the speaker’s table:) 
Put your arms out straight and stiff, please. 
Press your hands together as tight as you can. 
Give me your strength. A little more, a little 
more, a little more, a little more. Give me all 
your strength. Your hands must tremble. Say 
to yourself, “I want to open my hands, but I 
cannot,” and press tighter and tighter. Think 
now “I can.” 

Now will you grasp your fist as tight as you 
can. To succeed one must give all one’s strength. 
Look at it now and think, “I want to open my 
hand, but I cannot, I cannot, I cannot,” and press 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 123 

tighter and tighter. Think now “I can.” I pray 
the person to think, but if the person would think 
the contrary, the contrary would take place. I 
don’t know whether you understand or not. 

Now will you put your hands together, please, 
always as tight as you can. Look at them now 
and think, “I want to separate my hands, but I 
cannot separate them,” then when you try to 
separate them, the tighter they press. Think now 
"I can.” 

You are a good subject. Very often in public 
it is not the same. When people come to me at 
Nancy they come with confidence. Generally the 
experiment does not fall. In your country it is 
not the same. Your people do not believe, there 
is a certain diffidence, and often—I don’t say 
often—but yesterday every experiment has suc¬ 
ceeded, and I hope it will be the same today. It 
is to be understood that people are not accustomed 
to be in public. 

Now will you suspend this key ring with your 
two fingers, and press as tight as you can and say, 
“I can’t drop it,” and you cannot, you press 
tighter and tighter. Think now “I can.” You 
can easily do it. 

Will you put your hand on the table, and press 


124 


How to Practice 


as much as you can and say, “Now I can no 
longer lift my hand, I cannot, I cannot,” and 
the more you try the less you can, you press 
tighter and tighter. Think now “I can.” Thank 
you. 

(The experiments were repeated with a number 
of others in the audience.) 

Generally when a person intends to succeed in 
his field he takes a precaution to cultivate his 
field, because he knows well that if he does not 
take this precaution the seed will not grow. I 
do the same with people. When people come to 
me I think of them as uncultivated fields. I plow 
them by giving the explanation I have given you, 
by making the demonstrations I have shown you, 
and when they are cultivated I can sow my seed, 
and the seed will grow, I sow my seed by making 
a little discourse. 

In English I tell them that the functions of 
the body will go rightly, they will have a good 
appetite, digestion will take place properly, assimi¬ 
lation will be good, they will sleep well every 
night. 

I will not make you a discourse, it will be too 
long. When I have given this counsel I tell 
people I will count three, and when I say three 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 125 

you open your eyes, and you feel quite well. I 
tell them to close their eyes to hear what I say 
to them. They open their eyes generally on 
people, smiling, and after a while you see I have 
given you good counsel, I have done my part; 
now you must do yours, and it is what you must 
do, if you will profit by my counsels. 

As long as you live, every morning, before 
getting up, every night, as soon as you are lying 
in bed, shut your eyes, and repeat 20 times, with 
your lips, loud enough to hear your own words, 
without trying to think of what you are saying—v 
if you think of it, it is well; if you don’t think 
of it, it is well—counting it on a little string, 
providing yourself with a little string of knots, 
“Day by day, in every way, I am getting better 
and better.” 

In this little phrase there are three important 
words, “In every way,” which impute all the 
suggestion. Thus it is quite useless to make 
particular suggestions, as they are all included in 
three words “in every way,” but you must pay 
attention to make the suggestion, the autosugges¬ 
tion, very simply. 

Try it like this, in a monotonous manner, with¬ 
out any effort, as they recite the litanies in the 


1 


126 


How to Practice 


church, “Day by day, in every way, I am getting 
better and better,” and so on, till 20. 

By repetition you succeed to put into your mind, 
unconscious mind, mechanically through the ear, 
the phrase, “Day by day, in every way, I am 
getting better and better.” 

You have seen by the explanations I have given 
you and the experiments I have made with you, 
that when we have an idea in our mind this idea 
becomes a reality. Thus if you think, “Every 
day, in every way, I am getting better and better,” 
day by day, in every way, you are getting better 
and better. 

You see, it is very simple, it is very easy, as I 
repeat, too simple to be well understood the first 
time. 

Now, finally, to show you the results such a 
custom can do, I will ask you the permission 
to read before you one or two letters, to show 
you what that method can do. 

Will you allow me? 

“Dear M. Coue—In 1920 I met with an acci¬ 
dent, causing concussion and paralysis. I con¬ 
sulted a specialist, who did nothing of any value, 
but an open minded and advanced medical man 
took my case in hand and sent me for a rest cure 


Suggestion and Autosuggestion 127 

in the country. In six months I could only walk 
a hundred yards in one hour, and had not mental 
balance. I took up your treatment of autosug¬ 
gestion, after reading reports of your wonderful 
work. In a short time only, following what I 
have read, I am now wonderfully well, and walked 
nine miles.” 

Another one which has been written to a lady, 
and given to me: “Am just steadily getting 
better and better”—there is the formula—“in 
fact, many people have been converted to believe 
in autosuggestion, just by seeing me and my im¬ 
proved health. People all say they hardly know 
me, I look so different, so much better. I don't 
think I ever remember feeling so well.” 

The last one: “Dear M. Coue: I am sure it 
will interest you to know that I am very much 
better since I was at Nancy, and attended your 
lectures in July. You will perhaps remember me 
by the fact that I had been actually sick at least 
once a day for 10 years. The sickness stopped 
after I had been a week at Nancy and has not 
come back.” 

You see, I can assure you that if you will make 
every morning and every night the autosuggestion 
which I have given you the counsel to do, you 


128 


How to Practice 




will get better in every way, and for the business 
it gives a strong, an enormous strength, because 
you get confidence in yourself, and when you 
have confidence in yourself you will succeed. I 
wish to profit you by my counsels, and I thank 
you for the attention you have given me. 


n 


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